“Does so long a service merit so cruel a reward?”
“And what of the honour of which you have so often preached to me?” said
Florida.
“Ah! madam,” said Amadour, “it would be impossible to hold your honour
more dear than I have held it. Before you were married, I was able so
to subdue my heart that you knew nothing of my desires, but now that you
are wedded and your honour may be shielded, do I wrong you in asking for
what is mine? By the strength of my love I have won you. He who first
possessed your heart had so little desire for your person that he
deserved to lose both. He who now owns your person is not worthy to have
your heart, and hence even your person does not properly belong to him.
But for five or six years I have for your sake borne many pains and
woes, which must show you that your body and heart belong to me alone.
Think not to defend yourself by speaking of conscience, for when love
constrains body and heart sin is never imputed. Those who are driven by
frenzy so far as to slay themselves cannot sin, for passion leaves no
room for reason; and if the passion of love be more intolerable than any
other, and more blinding to the senses, what sin could you fasten upon
one who yields to the conduct of such indomitable power? I am going
away, and have no hope of ever seeing you again; but if before my
departure I could have of you that assurance which the greatness of
my love deserves, I should be strengthened sufficiently to endure in
patience the sorrows of a long separation. If you will not grant me my
request you will ere long learn that your harshness has brought me to a
miserable and a cruel death.” (18)
18 The passage commencing “Those who are driven” and ending
“a cruel death” is deficient in the earlier editions of the
_Heptameron_, which give the following in place of it: “Do
not doubt but what those who have felt the power of love
will cast the blame on you who have so robbed me of my
liberty and dazzled my senses with your divine graces, that
not knowing what to do henceforth, I am constrained to go
away without the hope of ever seeing you again; certain,
however, that wherever I may be, you will still have part of
my heart, which will ever remain yours, be I on land, on the
sea, or in the hands of my most cruel enemies.” The above is
one of various instances of the liberty taken by Boaistuau
and Gruget with Margaret’s text.--Ed.
Florida was not less grieved than astonished to hear these words from
one whom she had never imagined capable of such discourse, and, weeping,
she thus replied--
“Alas, Amadour, is this the honourable converse that we used to have
together while I was young? Is this the honour or conscience which many
a time you counselled me to value more than life? Have you forgotten
both the worthy examples you set before me of virtuous ladies who
withstood unholy love, and also your own contempt for erring women? I
cannot believe you so changed, Amadour, that regard for God, your own
conscience, and my honour is wholly dead within you. But if it indeed
be as you say, I praise the divine goodness which has prevented the
misfortune into which I was about to fall, and has revealed to me by
your own words the heart of which I was so ignorant. Having lost the
son of the Infante of Fortune, not only by my marriage, but also, as
is known to me, by reason of his love for another, and finding myself
wedded to a man whom, strive as I may, I cannot love, I resolved to set
heart and affection entirely on loving you. This love I built upon that
virtue which I had so often perceived in you, and to which by your own
assistance I think I have attained--I mean the virtue of loving one’s
honour and conscience more than life. I came hither thinking to make
this rock of virtue a sure foundation of love. But you have in a
moment shown me, Amadour, that instead of a pure and cleanly rock, this
foundation would have been one of shifting sand or filthy mire; and
although a great part of the house in which I hoped always to dwell
had already been raised, you have suddenly demolished it. Lay aside,
therefore, any hope you had concerning me, and make up your mind not to
seek me by look or word wherever I may be, or to hope that I shall ever
be able or willing to change my resolve. It is with the deepest sorrow
that I tell you this, though had I gone so far as to swear eternal
love with you, I know that my heart could not have lived through this
meeting. Even now I am so confounded to find myself deceived, that I
am sure my life will be either short or sad. With these words I bid you
farewell, and for ever.”
I will not try to describe to you the grief that Amadour felt on hearing
this speech. It is impossible not only to describe it, but even to
conceive it, except indeed to such as have experienced the like. Seeing
that with this cruel conclusion she was about to leave him, he seized
her by the arm, knowing full well that, if he did not remove her evil
opinion of him, he would lose her for ever. Accordingly he dissembled
his looks as well as he could, and said--
“During my whole life, madam, I have desired to love a woman of virtue,
and having found so few of them, I was minded to put you to proof, and
so discover whether you were as well worthy of esteem as of love. Now I
know for certain that you are; and therefore I give praise to God, who
has inclined my heart to the love of such great perfection. I entreat
you to pardon my mad and foolhardy attempt, seeing that the issue of it
has turned to your honour and to my great satisfaction.”
Florida was beginning to learn through him the deceitfulness of men;
and, just as she had formerly found it difficult to believe in evil
where it existed, so did she now find it even more difficult to believe
in virtue where there was none.
“Would to God you spoke the truth,” she said to him; “but I am not so
ignorant as not to know by my experience in marriage that the blindness
of strong passion led you to act as you did. Had God given me a loose
rein I am sure that you would not have drawn bridle. Those who go in
quest of virtue are wont to take a different road to yours. But enough;
if I have been too hasty in crediting you with some goodness, it is time
I learned the truth, by which I am now delivered out of your hands.”
So saying, Florida left the room. As long as the night lasted she did
nought but weep; for the change that had taken place caused her intense
grief, and her heart had much ado to hold out against the sorrowing of
love. Although, guided by reason, she had resolved to love no more, yet
the heart, which cannot be subdued, would in no wise permit this. Thus
she was unable to love him less than before, and knowing that love had
been the cause of his offence, she made up her mind to satisfy love by
continuing to love him with her whole heart, and to obey honour by never
giving any sign of her affection either to him or to any one else.
In the morning Amadour departed in the distress that I have described.
Nevertheless his heart, which was so lofty that there was none like
it in the world, suffered him not to despair, but prompted him to
new devices for seeing Florida again and winning her favour. So as he
proceeded to the King of Spain, who was then at Toledo, he took his way
through the county of Aranda, where he arrived very late one evening,
and found the Countess in great sadness on account of the absence of her
daughter.
When she saw Amadour she kissed and embraced him as though he had been
her own son, and this no less for the love she herself bore him as for
that which she suspected he had for Florida. She asked minutely for news
of her daughter, and he told her what he could, though not the entire
truth. However, he confessed the love which existed between them, and
which Florida had always concealed; and he begged the Countess to aid
him in hearing often of Florida, and to take her as speedily as possible
to Aranda.
At daybreak he went on his way, and when he had despatched his business
with the King he left for the war. So sad was he and so changed in
every way that ladies, captains, and acquaintances alike could scarcely
recognise him.
He now wore nothing but black, and this of a heavier pile than was
needful as mourning for his dead wife; but indeed her death served only
as a cloak for the sorrow that was in his heart. Thus Amadour spent
three or four years without returning to Court.
The Countess of Aranda hearing that Florida was changed and that it was
pitiful to see her, sent for her, hoping that she would return home. The
contrary, however, happened. When Florida learned that Amadour had
told her mother of their love, and that she, although so discreet and
virtuous, had approved of it, she was in extraordinary perplexity. On
the one hand she perceived that if her mother, who had such great esteem
for Amadour, were told the truth some mischief might befall the latter;
and this even to save her life she would not have brought to pass, for
she felt strong enough to punish his folly herself without calling on
her kinsfolk for assistance. On the other hand she saw that, if she
concealed the evil she knew of him, she would be constrained by her
mother and all her friends to speak to him and show him favour, and this
she feared would only strengthen his evil purpose. However, as he was
a long way off, she kept her own counsel, and wrote to him whenever the
Countess commanded her. Still her letters were such that he could see
they were written more out of obedience than goodwill; and the grief
he felt in reading them was as great as his joy had been in reading the
earlier ones.
At the end of two or three years, when he had performed so many noble
deeds that all the paper in Spain could not contain the records of them,
(19) he conceived a very skilful device, not indeed to win Florida’s
heart, which he looked upon as lost, but to gain the victory over his
enemy, since such she had shown herself to be. He put aside all the
promptings of reason and even the fear of death, and at the risk of
his life resolved to act in the following way. He persuaded the chief
Governor (20) to send him on an embassy to the King concerning some
secret attempt against Leucate; (21) and he procured a command to
take counsel with the Countess of Aranda about the matter before
communicating it to the King.
19 Margaret, perhaps, wrote “All the paper of Spain could
not contain them,” simply because Spanish paper was then of
very small size. Paper-making had, however, been almost
monopolised by Spain until the end of the thirteenth
century, the cotton used in the manufacture being imported
from the East.--M.