Part 9

The gentleman then asked his wife why she was laughing so heartily, so that he might have a share in her merriment.

“Husband,” she replied, “I am so foolish that I laugh at my own shadow.”

Inquire as he might, she would never acknowledge any other reason, but, nevertheless, he thenceforward refrained from kissing such shadow-faces.

“That is the story of which I was reminded when I spoke of the lady who loved her husband’s sweetheart.”

“By my faith,” said Ennasuite, “if my maid had treated me in that fashion, I should have risen and extinguished the candle upon her nose.”

“You are indeed terrible,” said Hircan, “but it had been well done if your husband and the maid had both turned upon you and beaten you soundly. There should not be so much ado for a kiss; and ‘twould have been better if his wife had said nothing about it, and had suffered him to take his pastime, which might perchance have cured his complaint.”

“Nay,” said Parlamente, “she was afraid that the end of the pastime would make him worse.”

“She was not one of those,” said Oisille, “against whom our Lord says, ‘We have mourned to you and ye have not lamented, we have sung to you and ye have not danced,’ (2) for when her husband was ill, she wept, and when he was merry, she laughed. In the same fashion every virtuous woman ought to share the good and evil, the joy and the sadness of her husband, and serve and obey him as the Church does Jesus Christ.”

2 “They are like unto children sitting in the market-place, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.”--St. Luke vii. 32.--M.

“Then, ladies,” said Parlamente, “our husbands should be to us what Christ is to the Church.”

“So are we,” said Saffredent, “and, if it were possible, something more; for Christ died but once for His Church, whereas we die daily for our wives.”

“Die!” said Longarine. “Methinks that you and the others here present are now worth more crowns than you were worth pence before you were wed.”

“And I know why,” said Saffredent; “it is because our worth is often tried. Still our shoulders are sensible of having worn the cuirass so long.”

“If,” said Ennasuite, “you had been obliged to wear harness for a month and lie on the hard ground, you would greatly long to regain the bed of your excellent wife, and wear the cuirass of which you now complain. But it is said that everything can be endured except ease, and that none know what rest is until they have lost it. This foolish woman, who laughed when her husband was merry, was fond of taking her rest under any circumstances.”

“I am sure,” said Longarine, “that she loved her rest better than her husband, since she took nothing that he did to heart.”

“She did take to heart,” said Parlamente, “those things which might have been hurtful to his conscience and his health, but she would not dwell upon trifles.”

“When you speak of conscience,” said Simontault “you make me laugh. ‘Tis a thing to which I would have no woman give heed.”

“It would be a good thing,” said Nomerfide, “if you had a wife like one who, after her husband’s death, proved that she loved her money better than her conscience.”

“I pray you,” said Saffredent, “tell us that tale. I give you my vote.”

“I had not intended,” said Nomcrfide, “to relate so short a story, but, since it is suited to the occasion, I will do so.”

TALE LV.

A merchant’s widow, whilst carrying out her husband’s will, interpreted its purport to the advantage of herself and her children. (1)

In the town of Safagossa there lived a rich merchant, who, finding his death draw nigh, and himself no longer able to retain possession of his goods---which he had perchance gathered together by evil means--thought that if he made a little present to God, he might thus after his death make part atonement for his sins, just as though God sold His pardon for money. Accordingly, when he had settled matters in respect of his house, he declared it to be his desire that a fine Spanish horse which he possessed should be sold for as much as it would bring, and the money obtained for it be distributed among the poor. And he begged his wife that she would in no wise fail to sell the horse as soon as he was dead, and distribute the money in the manner he had commanded.

1 Whether the incidents here related be true or not, it is probable that this was a story told to Queen Margaret at the time of her journey to Spain in 1525. It will have been observed (ante, pp. 36 and 42) that both the previous tale and this one are introduced into the Heptameron in a semi- apologetic fashion, as though the Queen had not originally intended that her work should include such short, slight anecdotes. However, already at this stage--the fifty-fifth only of the hundred tales which she proposed writing--she probably found fewer materials at her disposal than she had anticipated, and harked back to incidents of her earlier years, which she had at first thought too trifling to record. Still, slight as this story may be, it is not without point. The example set by the wife of the Saragossa merchant has been followed in modern times in more ways than one.--Ed.

When the burial was over and the first tears were shed, the wife, who was no more of a fool than Spanish women are used to be, went to the servant who with herself had heard his master declare his desire, and said to him--

“Methinks I have lost enough in the person of a husband I loved so dearly, without afterwards losing his possessions. Yet would I not disobey his word, but rather better his intention; for the poor man, led astray by the greed of the priests, thought to make a great sacrifice to God in bestowing after his death a sum of money, not a crown of which, as you well know, he would have given in his lifetime to relieve even the sorest need. I have therefore bethought me that we will do what he commanded at his death, and in still better fashion than he himself would have done if had he lived a fortnight longer. But no living person must know aught of the matter.”

When she had received the servant’s promise to keep it secret, she said to him--

“You will go and sell the horse, and when you are asked, ‘How much?’ you will reply, ‘A ducat.’ I have, however, a very fine cat which I also wish to dispose of, and you will sell it with the horse for ninety-nine ducats, so that cat and horse together will bring in the hundred ducats for which my husband wished to sell the horse alone.”