--
Girolamo loves Salvestra: yielding to his mother's prayers he goes to Paris;
he returns to find Salvestra married; he enters her house by stealth, lays
himself by her side, and dies; he is borne to the church, where Salvestra
lays herself by his side, and dies.
--
When Emilia's story was done, Neifile at a word from the king thus
began:--Some there are, noble ladies, who, methinks, deem themselves to be
wiser than the rest of the world, and are in fact less so; and by
consequence presume to measure their wit against not only the counsels of
men but the nature of things; which presumption has from time to time been
the occasion of most grievous mishaps; but nought of good was ever seen to
betide thereof. And as there is nought in nature that brooks to be schooled
or thwarted so ill as love, the quality of which is such that it is more
likely to die out of its own accord than to be done away of set purpose, I
am minded to tell you a story of a lady, who, while she sought to be more
wise than became her, and than she was, and indeed than the nature of the
matter, wherein she studied to shew her wisdom, allowed, thinking to unseat
Love from the heart that he had occupied, and wherein perchance the stars
had established him, did in the end banish at one and the same time Love and
life from the frame of her son.
Know, then, that, as 'tis related by them of old time, there was once in our
city a very great and wealthy merchant, Leonardo Sighieri by name, who had
by his lady a son named Girolamo, after whose birth he departed this life,
leaving his affairs in meet and due order; and well and faithfully were they
afterwards administered in the interest of the boy by his mother and
guardians. As he grew up, consorting more frequently with the neighbours'
children than any others of the quarter, he made friends with a girl of his
own age that was the daughter of a tailor; and in course of time this
friendship ripened into a love so great and vehement, that Girolamo was ever
ill at ease when he saw her not; nor was her love for him a whit less strong
than his for her. Which his mother perceiving would not seldom chide him
therefor and chastise him. And as Girolamo could not give it up, she
confided her distress to his guardians, speaking--for by reason of her boy's
great wealth she thought to make, as it were, an orange-tree out of a
bramble--on this wise:--"This boy of ours, who is now scarce fourteen years
old, is so in love with a daughter of one of our neighbours, a tailor--
Salvestra is the girl's name--that, if we part them not, he will,
peradventure, none else witting, take her to wife some day, and I shall
never be happy again; or, if he see her married to another, he will pine
away; to prevent which, methinks, you would do well to send him away to
distant parts on the affairs of the shop; for so, being out of sight she
will come at length to be out of mind, and then we can give him some
well-born girl to wife." Whereto the guardians answered, that 'twas well
said, and that it should be so done to the best of their power: so they
called the boy into the shop, and one of them began talking to him very
affectionately on this wise:--"My son, thou art now almost grown up; 'twere
well thou shouldst now begin to learn something for thyself of thy own
affairs: wherefore we should be very well pleased if thou wert to go stay at
Paris a while, where thou wilt see how we trade with not a little of thy
wealth, besides which thou wilt there become a much better, finer, and more
complete gentleman than thou couldst here, and when thou hast seen the lords
and barons and seigneurs that are there in plenty, and hast acquired their
manners, thou canst return hither." The boy listened attentively, and then
answered shortly that he would have none of it, for he supposed he might
remain at Florence as well as another. Whereupon the worthy men plied him
with fresh argument, but were unable to elicit other answer from him, and
told his mother so. Whereat she was mightily incensed, and gave him a great
scolding, not for his refusing to go to Paris, but for his love; which done,
she plied him with soft, wheedling words, and endearing expressions and
gentle entreaties that he would be pleased to do as his guardians would have
him; whereby at length she prevailed so far, that he consented to go to
Paris for a year and no more; and so 'twas arranged. To Paris accordingly
our ardent lover went, and there under one pretext or another was kept for
two years. He returned more in love than ever, to find his Salvestra married
to a good youth that was a tent-maker; whereat his mortification knew no
bounds. But, seeing that what must be must be, he sought to compose his
mind; and, having got to know where she lived, he took to crossing her path,
according to the wont of young men in love, thinking that she could no more
have forgotten him than he her. 'Twas otherwise, however; she remembered him
no more than if she had never seen him; or, if she had any recollection of
him, she dissembled it: whereof the young man was very soon ware, to his
extreme sorrow. Nevertheless he did all that he could to recall himself to
her mind; but, as thereby he seemed to be nothing advantaged, he made up his
mind, though he should die for it, to speak to her himself. So, being
instructed as to her house by a neighbour, he entered it privily one evening
when she and her husband were gone to spend the earlier hours with some
neighbours, and hid himself in her room behind some tent-cloths that were
stretched there, and waited till they were come back, and gone to bed, and
he knew the husband to be asleep. Whereupon he got him to the place where he
had seen Salvestra lie down, and said as he gently laid his hand upon her
bosom:--"O my soul, art thou yet asleep?" The girl was awake, and was on the
point of uttering a cry, when he forestalled her, saying:--"Hush! for God's
sake. I am thy Girolamo." Whereupon she, trembling in every limb:--"Nay, but
for God's sake, Girolamo, begone: 'tis past, the time of our childhood, when
our love was excusable. Thou seest I am married; wherefore 'tis no longer
seemly that I should care for any other man than my husband, and so by the
one God, I pray thee, begone; for, if my husband were to know that thou art
here, the least evil that could ensue would be that I should never more be
able to live with him in peace or comfort, whereas, having his love, I now
pass my days with him in tranquil happiness." Which speech caused the young
man grievous distress; but 'twas in vain that he reminded her of the past,
and of his love that distance had not impaired, and therewith mingled many a
prayer and the mightiest protestations. Wherefore, yearning for death, he
besought her at last that she would suffer him to lie a while beside her
till he got some heat, for he was chilled through and through, waiting for
her, and promised her that he would say never a word to her, nor touch her,
and that as soon as he was a little warmed he would go away. On which terms
Salvestra, being not without pity for him, granted his request. So the young
man lay down beside her, and touched her not; but, gathering up into one
thought the love he had so long borne her, the harshness with which she now
requited it, and his ruined hopes, resolved to live no longer, and in a
convulsion, without a word, and with fists clenched, expired by her side.
After a while the girl, marvelling at his continence, and fearing lest her
husband should awake, broke silence, saying:--"Nay, but, Girolamo, why goest
thou not?" But, receiving no answer, she supposed that he slept. Wherefore,
reaching forth her hand to arouse him, she touched him and found him to her
great surprise cold as ice; and touching him again and again somewhat
rudely, and still finding that he did not stir, she knew that he was dead.
Her grief was boundless, and 'twas long before she could bethink her how to
act. But at last she resolved to sound her husband's mind as to what should
be done in such a case without disclosing that 'twas his own. So she
awakened him, and told him how he was then bested, as if it were the affair
of another, and then asked him, if such a thing happened to her, what course
he would take. The good man answered that he should deem it best to take the
dead man privily home, and there leave him, bearing no grudge against the
lady, who seemed to have done no wrong. "And even so," said his wife, "it is
for us to do;" and taking his hand, she laid it on the corpse. Whereat he
started up in consternation, and struck a light, and with out further parley
with his wife, clapped the dead man's clothes upon him, and forthwith
(confident in his own innocence) raised him on his shoulders, and bore him
to the door of his house, where he set him down and left him.
Day came, and the dead man being found before his own door, there was a
great stir made, particularly by his mother; the body was examined with all
care from head to foot, and, no wound or trace of violence being found on
it, the physicians were on the whole of opinion that, as the fact was, the
man had died of grief. So the corpse was borne to a church, and thither came
the sorrowing mother and other ladies, her kinswomen and neighbours, and
began to wail and mourn over it without restraint after our Florentine
fashion. And when the wailing had reached its height, the good man, in whose
house the death had occurred, said to Salvestra:--"Go wrap a mantle about
thy head, and hie thee to the church, whither Girolamo has been taken, and
go about among the women and list what they say of this matter, and I will
do the like among the men, that we may hear if aught be said to our
disadvantage." The girl assented, for with tardy tenderness she now yearned
to look on him dead, whom living she would not solace with a single kiss,
and so to the church she went. Ah! how marvellous to whoso ponders it, is
the might of Love, and how unsearchable his ways! That heart, which, while
Fortune smiled on Girolamo, had remained sealed to him, opened to him now
that he was fordone, and, kindling anew with all its old flame, melted with
such compassion that no sooner saw she his dead face, as there she stood
wrapped in her mantle, than, edging her way forward through the crowd of
women, she stayed not till she was beside the corpse; and there, uttering a
piercing shriek, she threw herself upon the dead youth, and as her face met
his, and before she might drench it with her tears, grief that had reft life
from him had even so reft it from her.
The women strove to comfort her, and bade her raise herself a little, for as
yet they knew her not; then, as she did not arise, they would have helped
her, but found her stiff and stark, and so, raising her up, they in one and
the same moment saw her to be Salvestra and dead. Whereat all the women that
were there, overborne by a redoubled pity, broke forth in wailing new and
louder far than before. From the church the bruit spread itself among the
men, and reached the ears of Salvestra's husband, who, deaf to all that
offered comfort or consolation, wept a long while; after which he told to
not a few that were there what had passed in the night between the youth and
his wife; and so 'twas known of all how they came to die, to the common
sorrow of all. So they took the dead girl, and arrayed her as they are wont
to array the dead, and laid her on the same bed beside the youth, and long
time they mourned her: then were they both buried in the same tomb, and thus
those, whom love had not been able to wed in life, were wedded by death in
indissoluble union.