Chapter XXXIII. In which is told the novel of The Ill-Advised Curiosity

In Florence, that rich and famous Italian city, in the province called Tuscany, there lived Anselmo and Lotario, two wealthy gentlemen of rank, and such friends that, by way of excellence and antonomasia, they were called by all who knew them the two friends. They were unmarried, young men of the same age and of the same habits; all of which was cause enough for the two of them to return each other’s friendship in equal measure. It is true that Anselmo was somewhat more inclined to the pastimes of love than Lotario, who was drawn after the pleasures of the hunt; but, when occasion arose, Anselmo would give up pursuing his own pleasures to follow Lotario’s, and Lotario would give up his to attend to Anselmo’s; and in this way their wills went so much in step that no well-regulated clock ever kept such time. Anselmo was desperately in love with a young lady of rank and beauty in the same city, the daughter of such good parents and so good herself that he resolved, with the counsel of his friend Lotario, without whom he did nothing, to ask her parents for her hand, and so he carried it out; and the one who bore the embassy was Lotario, and the one who concluded the business so much to his friend’s liking that in a short time Anselmo saw himself put in the possession he desired, and Camila so happy at having won Anselmo for her husband that she never ceased giving thanks to heaven, and to Lotario, through whose means so much good had come to her.

The first days, as all wedding days are apt to be merry, Lotario frequented his friend Anselmo’s house as he used to, seeking to honor him, entertain him, and make merry with him in every way he could; but, once the wedding was over and the stream of visits and congratulations had subsided, Lotario began carefully to neglect his calls at Anselmo’s house, because it seemed to him—as it is reasonable that it should seem to all who are sensible—that the houses of married friends are not to be visited and frequented in the same way as when they were bachelors; for, although good and true friendship neither can nor should be suspect in anything, the honor of a married man is nevertheless so delicate that it seems it may take offense even from his own brothers, how much more from friends.

Anselmo noticed Lotario’s falling off, and made great complaints of him, telling him that if he had known that marrying was to be a reason for not seeing him as before, he would never have done it, and that if, through the good fellowship the two of them had kept while he was single, they had won so sweet a name as being called the two friends, he should not allow, from a wish to play the circumspect man and for no other reason, so famous and so pleasant a name to be lost; and that he therefore begged him, if such a manner of speaking might be used between them, to be master of his house once more and to come in and go out of it as before, assuring him that his wife Camila had no other pleasure or other will than the one he wished her to have, and that, since she knew how dearly the two of them loved each other, she was perplexed to see such aloofness in him. To all these and many other reasons that Anselmo gave Lotario to persuade him to come to his house as he used to, Lotario answered with such prudence, discretion, and good sense that Anselmo was satisfied with his friend’s good intention, and they agreed that two days a week, and on feast days, Lotario should come and dine with him; and, although this was so agreed between the two, Lotario resolved to do no more than he saw was most in keeping with the honor of his friend, whose good name he valued more than his own. He used to say, and say rightly, that a married man to whom heaven had granted a beautiful wife ought to take as much care over which friends he brought to his house as over seeing which women friends his wife kept company with, because what is not done or arranged in the squares, or in the churches, or at public festivities or the stations of the Cross—things that husbands are not always to deny their wives—is arranged and made easy in the house of the friend or kinswoman in whom one has most confidence.

Lotario also used to say that married men had need, each of them, of some friend who would point out to him any lapses he made in his conduct, because it often happens that, with the great love a husband has for his wife, he either does not warn her or does not tell her, so as not to vex her, to do or to leave undone certain things, the doing or not doing of which would bring him honor or reproach; whereas, if warned by his friend, he could easily put everything right. But where shall a friend be found as sensible and as loyal and true as Lotario asks for here? I do not know, to be sure; Lotario alone was such a one, who with all solicitude and watchfulness looked after his friend’s honor and tried to thin out, trim, and cut short the agreed days for going to his house, so that the idle crowd and roving, malicious eyes might not think ill of the entry of a young man, rich, well-bred, and nobly born, and of the good parts he thought he had, into the house of a woman as beautiful as Camila; for, although her virtue and worth could bridle every slanderous tongue, still he did not want to bring her good name or his friend’s into question, and for this reason he filled and took up most of the agreed days with other matters, which he made out to be unavoidable. And so many hours and parts of the day went by in complaints from the one and excuses from the other.

It happened, then, that one day when the two were walking in a meadow outside the city, Anselmo spoke to Lotario in words to this effect: “You would think, Lotario, my friend, that for the favors God has done me in letting me be born to parents such as mine were, and in giving me, with no sparing hand, the goods both of nature, as they are called, and of fortune, I could never make a return of gratitude that would match the good received, and over and above that the favor he did me in giving me you for a friend and Camila for my own wife: two treasures that I value, if not in the degree I ought, at least in the degree I can. Well, with all these advantages, which are commonly the whole of what men commonly need, and can have, to live content, I live the most despondent and the most discontented man in the whole wide world; for I cannot say how many days now I have been wearied and oppressed by a desire so strange, and so far from the common way of others, that I marvel at myself, and I blame and scold myself when I am alone, and I try to keep it quiet and hide it from my own thoughts; and I have been as able to keep this secret as if I were trying on purpose to tell it to the whole world. And since, in effect, it must come out into the open, I want it to be into the archive of your discretion, trusting that, with that and with the diligence you will apply, as my true friend, to helping me, I shall soon see myself free of the anguish it causes me, and that my happiness will reach, through your care, the degree to which my discontent has reached through my folly.” Anselmo’s words held Lotario in suspense, and he did not know where so long a prelude or preamble was going to end; and, though he kept turning over in his imagination what desire it might be that so wearied his friend, he always fell very wide of the mark of the truth; and, to get out quickly of the agony that suspense was causing him, he told him that he did a plain wrong to their great friendship in going about looking for roundabout ways to tell him his most hidden thoughts, since he knew for certain that he could count on him either for counsel to keep them in check or for help to fulfill them.

“That is the truth,” answered Anselmo, “and with that confidence I tell you, Lotario, my friend, that the desire that wearies me is the wish to know whether Camila, my wife, is as good and as perfect as I think; and I cannot be assured of this truth except by testing her in such a way that the test shows the purity of her goodness, as fire shows the purity of gold. For I hold, my friend, that a woman is good only so far as she is or is not courted, and that she alone is strong who does not bend to the promises, the gifts, the tears, and the continual importunities of eager lovers. For what is there to be grateful for,” he said, “in a woman’s being good, if no one tells her to be bad? What wonder that she should be retiring and timid who is given no occasion to let herself go, and who knows that she has a husband who, if he catches her in the first wantonness, will take her life? So that the woman who is good out of fear, or for lack of opportunity, I will not hold in the esteem in which I shall hold the one who was courted and pursued and came out with the crown of victory. And so, for these reasons and for many others I could give you to support and strengthen the opinion I hold, I wish Camila, my wife, to pass through these trials and to be refined and assayed in the fire of finding herself wooed and courted, and by someone who has the worth to set his desires upon her; and if she comes out, as I believe she will, with the palm of this battle, I shall hold my good fortune to be without equal; I shall be able to say that the void of my desires is filled to the brim; I shall say that it fell to my lot to have the valiant woman of whom the Wise Man says, Who shall find her? And should this turn out the opposite of what I think, with the satisfaction of seeing that I was right in my opinion, I shall bear without grief the grief that so costly an experiment may with reason cause me. And, taking it as settled that nothing you may say to me against my desire will be of any use in keeping me from putting it into effect, I want you, Lotario, my friend, to make ready to be the instrument that works this design of my pleasure; for I will give you the opportunity to do it, and you shall lack nothing that I see to be necessary for courting a modest, honorable, retiring, and disinterested woman. And among other things what moves me to entrust this so arduous an enterprise to you is seeing that if Camila is conquered by you, the conquest will not be carried to its utmost and final extreme, but only to the point of counting as done what is to be done, out of proper regard; and so I shall not be wronged except in the desire, and my injury will stay hidden in the virtue of your silence, which I know well, in whatever concerns me, will be as everlasting as that of death. So, if you want me to have a life that I can call a life, you must enter into this battle of love at once, not lukewarmly or lazily, but with the zeal and diligence my desire calls for, and with the confidence our friendship assures me of.”

These were the words Anselmo said to Lotario, to all of which he listened so attentively that, apart from those already set down here, he did not open his lips until the other had finished; and, seeing that he said no more, after gazing at him a good while, as though he were looking at something he had never seen before, which filled him with wonder and amazement, he said: “I cannot bring myself to believe, Anselmo, my friend, that the things you have said to me are not jests; for, had I thought you were saying them in earnest, I would not have allowed you to go so far, since by not listening to you I would have cut your long harangue short. Surely I imagine either that you do not know me or that I do not know you. But no; for I know well that you are Anselmo, and you know that I am Lotario; the trouble is that I think you are not the Anselmo you used to be, and you must have thought that neither am I the Lotario I ought to be, because the things you have said to me are not those of that Anselmo, my friend, nor are those you ask of me to be asked of that Lotario whom you know; for good friends are to test their friends and make use of them, as a poet said, usque ad aras (as far as the altar); which was meant to say that they were not to make use of their friendship in things that were against God. Well, if a heathen felt this about friendship, how much more fitting is it that the Christian should feel it, who knows that for no human friendship must he lose the friendship of God? And if a friend should go so far beyond the mark as to set aside his duties to heaven to serve those of his friend, it must not be for light things of small moment, but only for those on which his friend’s honor and life depend. Well, tell me now, Anselmo: which of these two things have you in danger, that I should venture to please you and do so detestable a thing as you ask of me? Neither, assuredly; on the contrary, you ask me, as I understand it, to strive and endeavor to take away your honor and your life, and to take away my own along with them. For if I am to try to take away your honor, it is clear that I take away your life, since a man without honor is worse than a dead man; and, if I am the instrument, as you want me to be, of so much harm to you, do I not end up dishonored, and, by the same token, without life? Listen, Anselmo, my friend, and have the patience not to answer me until I have finished telling you what occurs to me about what your desire has asked of you; for there will be time left for you to reply to me and for me to listen to you.”

“With pleasure,” said Anselmo. “Say what you will.”

And Lotario went on, saying:

“It seems to me, Anselmo, that you now have a mind like the one the Moors always have, to whom the error of their sect cannot be made clear by citations from Holy Scripture, or by arguments that rest on the speculation of the understanding, or by those founded on articles of faith, but who must be brought examples that are tangible, easy, intelligible, demonstrative, indubitable, with mathematical demonstrations that cannot be denied, as when they say: ‘If from two equal parts we take equal parts, those that remain are also equal’; and, when they do not understand this in words, as in fact they do not, it must be shown to them with the hands and set before their eyes, and, even with all this, no one can manage to persuade them of the truths of my holy religion. And this same method and manner I shall have to use with you, because the desire that has been born in you is so far astray and so remote from anything that has a shadow of reason that it seems to me the time I spend in making you understand your simplicity will be wasted, for I do not want to give it any other name for now, and I am even inclined to leave you in your folly as punishment for your wicked desire; but the friendship I bear you does not let me use such rigor, for it will not consent to my leaving you in such manifest danger of ruining yourself. And, so that you may see it clearly, tell me, Anselmo: have you not told me that I am to court a retiring woman, persuade a modest one, make offers to a disinterested one, pay court to a prudent one? Yes, you have told me so. Well, if you know that you have a wife who is retiring, modest, disinterested, and prudent, what are you looking for? And if you think she will come out victorious from all my assaults, as she no doubt will, what better titles do you think to give her afterward than those she has now, or what will she be afterward more than she is now? Either you do not hold her to be what you say, or you do not know what you are asking. If you do not hold her to be what you say, why do you want to test her, unless it is to treat her as a bad woman and do with her whatever you please? But if she is as good as you believe, it will be an ill-advised thing to make trial of the truth itself, since, once the trial is made, she must remain with the same esteem she had before. So it is a conclusive argument that to attempt things from which harm rather than profit is likely to come to us belongs to judgments without reason and rash, and more so when they want to attempt things they are not forced or compelled to, and which show plainly from a long way off that to attempt them is manifest madness. Difficult things are attempted for God, or for the world, or for both together: those undertaken for God are those the saints undertook, undertaking to live the life of angels in human bodies; those undertaken out of regard for the world are those of men who cross such an infinity of water, such a diversity of climates, such strangeness of peoples, to acquire what they call the goods of fortune. And those attempted for God and for the world together are those of valiant soldiers, who no sooner see in the enemy’s wall an opening as wide as a round cannonball could make than, putting aside all fear, without reasoning or heeding the manifest danger that threatens them, borne in flight on the wings of the desire to stand up for their faith, their nation, and their king, they hurl themselves fearlessly into the midst of a thousand deaths that oppose them and await them. These are the things that are usually attempted, and it is honor, glory, and profit to attempt them, though they are so full of hardships and dangers. But the thing you say you want to attempt and put into effect will win you neither glory from God, nor goods of fortune, nor fame among men; because, even if you come out of it as you wish, you will be neither prouder, nor richer, nor more honored than you are now; and if you do not, you will find yourself in the greatest misery that can be imagined, because it will be no use to you then to think that nobody knows the misfortune that has befallen you, for it will be enough to afflict and undo you that you know it yourself. And, in confirmation of this truth, I want to tell you a stanza that the famous poet Luigi Tansillo wrote at the end of the first part of his Tears of Saint Peter, which goes like this:

The grief grows, and the shame grows too,
in Peter, once the day has shown its face;
and though he sees no one, he is ashamed
of his own self, for seeing he has sinned:
for in a noble breast, to feel such shame,
it is not only being seen that moves it;
it feels ashamed before itself when it errs,
though no one see it but the heaven and earth.

“So you will not escape your grief by secrecy; on the contrary, you will have to weep without end, if not tears from your eyes, then tears of blood from your heart, such as that simple doctor wept who, as our poet tells us, made the test of the cup, which the prudent Reinaldos, reasoning better, excused himself from making; for, although that is a poetic fiction, it holds within it moral secrets worth noticing and understanding and imitating. All the more since, with what I now mean to tell you, you will finally come to know the great error you want to commit. Tell me, Anselmo, if heaven, or good luck, had made you the lord and lawful owner of a very fine diamond, with whose quality and carats every lapidary who saw it was satisfied, and if they all said with one voice and common opinion that in carats, quality, and fineness it reached as far as the nature of such a stone could go, and you yourself believed it so, knowing nothing to the contrary, would it be right for you to take a fancy to pick up that diamond and put it between an anvil and a hammer, and there, by sheer force of blows and arm, test whether it is as hard and as fine as they say? And more so, if you were to carry it out; for, even supposing the stone held out against so foolish a test, it would not on that account gain any more value or any more fame; and if it broke, a thing that might happen, would not everything be lost? Yes, assuredly, and its owner left to be considered a simpleton by everyone. Then take it, Anselmo, my friend, that Camila is a very fine diamond, in your estimation as in that of others, and that it is not reasonable to put her at risk of breaking, since, though she should keep her integrity, she cannot rise to more value than she has now; and if she should fail and not hold out, consider now what you would be left without her, and with how much reason you could complain of yourself, for having been the cause of her ruin and your own. Consider that there is no jewel in the world worth as much as a chaste and honorable woman, and that the whole honor of women consists in the good opinion that is held of them; and, since your wife’s is such that it reaches the extreme of goodness you know of, why do you want to put this truth in doubt? Consider, my friend, that woman is an imperfect creature, and that obstacles are not to be put in her way for her to stumble and fall over, but rather taken away and her path cleared of every hindrance, so that without trouble she may run lightly to attain the perfection she lacks, which consists in being virtuous. The students of nature say that the ermine is a small creature with a pure white skin, and that when hunters want to catch it they use this device: knowing the places where it usually passes and comes, they block them off with mud, and then, beating the bushes, they drive it toward that place, and as soon as the ermine reaches the mud, it stands still and lets itself be taken and captured, rather than pass through the mire and lose and soil its whiteness, which it values more than freedom and life. The modest and chaste woman is an ermine, and the virtue of modesty is whiter and cleaner than snow; and he who wants her not to lose it, but rather to keep and preserve it, must use a different method from the one used with the ermine, because the mire of the gifts and attentions of importunate lovers must not be put in front of her, since perhaps, and even without perhaps, she has not so much virtue and natural strength that she can trample over those obstacles and pass through them by herself, and it is necessary to take them out of her way and put before her the cleanness of virtue and the beauty that good fame holds within it. The good woman is likewise like a mirror of shining, clear crystal; but it is liable to be clouded and dimmed by any breath that touches it. The modest woman must be treated as relics are: adored and not touched. The good woman must be guarded and prized as one guards and prizes a beautiful garden full of flowers and roses, whose owner allows no one to walk in it or handle it; it is enough that from afar, and through the iron railings, people enjoy its fragrance and beauty. Finally, I want to tell you some verses that have come to my memory, which I heard in a modern play, and which seem to me to fit the subject we are discussing. A prudent old man was advising another, the father of a maiden, to keep her in, guard her, and shut her away, and among other reasons he said these to him:

Woman is a thing of glass;
but no one ought to test her
to see whether she breaks or not,
since anything could happen.
And breaking comes more easily,
and it is not wisdom to expose
to the danger of being broken
what can never be mended.
And let all men hold this view,
for I found it upon reason:
if there are Danaës in the world,
there are golden showers too.

“All that I have told you so far, Anselmo, has concerned you; and now it is right that something be heard of what concerns me; and if it is long, forgive me, for the labyrinth you have entered and from which you want me to rescue you requires it all. You hold me to be your friend, and you want to take away my honor, a thing contrary to all friendship; and not only do you aim at this, but you try to make me take yours from you. That you want to take mine from me is clear, since, when Camila sees me courting her, as you ask me to, she is certain to take me for a man without honor and of ill regard, since I attempt and do a thing so far from what being who I am and your friendship oblige me to. That you want me to take yours from you there is no doubt, because, seeing me court her, Camila must think I have seen some lightness in her that gave me the boldness to reveal my wicked desire to her; and, if she holds herself dishonored, her dishonor touches you, as something of yours. And from this arises what is commonly said: that the husband of an adulterous wife, though he does not know it, nor has given cause for his wife not to be what she should, nor has it been in his power, nor through his carelessness and lack of caution, to prevent his misfortune, is nonetheless called and named by a vile and shameful name; and in a certain way those who know of his wife’s wickedness look at him with eyes of contempt instead of looking at him with eyes of pity, seeing that it is not through his fault but through the pleasure of his wicked partner that he is in that misfortune. But I want to tell you the reason why the husband of a bad wife is justly dishonored, though he does not know she is one, nor is to blame, nor has had a part in it, nor given occasion for her to be so. And do not weary of hearing me, for it will all redound to your benefit. When God created our first father in the earthly Paradise, Holy Scripture says that God cast sleep upon Adam, and that while he slept he took a rib from his left side, from which he formed our mother Eve; and as soon as Adam woke and looked at her, he said: ‘This is flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones.’ And God said: ‘For her a man shall leave his father and mother, and the two shall be one same flesh.’ And then was instituted the divine sacrament of matrimony, with such bonds that death alone can untie them. And this miraculous sacrament has such force and virtue that it makes two different persons one same flesh; and in good married couples it does even more, for, though they have two souls, they have no more than one will. And from this it comes that, as the flesh of the wife is one and the same with that of the husband, the stains that fall on it, or the defects it seeks out, redound upon the husband’s flesh, though he has not, as has been said, given occasion for that harm. For, just as the pain of the foot or of any member of the human body is felt by the whole body, because it is all of one same flesh, and the head feels the hurt of the ankle without having caused it, so the husband shares in the wife’s dishonor, being one and the same thing with her. And since the honors and dishonors of the world are all of flesh and blood and are born of it, and those of the bad wife are of this kind, it follows of necessity that the husband has his share of them and is held to be dishonored without his knowing it. Consider, then, Anselmo, the danger you put yourself in by wanting to disturb the peace in which your good wife lives. Consider for what a vain and ill-advised curiosity you want to stir up the humors that now lie quiet in the breast of your chaste wife. Take note that what you venture to gain is little, and that what you will lose will be so much that I shall leave it as it stands, for I lack words to make it sound as great as it is. But if all I have said is not enough to move you from your wicked purpose, you may very well look for another instrument of your dishonor and misfortune, for I do not mean to be it, even if I lose your friendship for it, which is the greatest loss I can imagine.”

Having said this, the virtuous and prudent Lotario fell silent, and Anselmo was left so bewildered and thoughtful that for a good while he could not answer him a word; but, at last, he said to him:

“With the attention you have seen, Lotario, my friend, I have listened to all you have wished to tell me, and in your reasons, examples, and comparisons I have seen the great good sense you have and the height of true friendship you have attained; and I likewise see and confess that if I do not follow your opinion and go after my own, I am fleeing from the good and running after the bad. This granted, you must consider that I am now suffering from the sickness some women commonly have, who take a craving to eat earth, plaster, charcoal, and other worse things, loathsome even to look at, let alone to eat; so it is necessary to use some device so that I may be cured, and this could be done easily, if only you begin, even lukewarmly and in pretense, to court Camila, who cannot be so tender that at the first encounters she lets her modesty fall to the ground; and with this beginning alone I shall be content, and you will have fulfilled what you owe to our friendship, not only giving me life but persuading me that I am not without honor. And you are obliged to do this for one reason only; and it is that, since I am, as I am, determined to put this trial into practice, you must not allow me to disclose my folly to another person, by which I would put at risk the honor you are trying to keep me from losing; and if yours does not stand where it should in Camila’s mind while you are courting her, it matters little or nothing, since soon, seeing in her the integrity we hope for, you will be able to tell her the plain truth of our scheme, with which your good name will return to what it was before. And since you venture so little and can give me so much happiness by venturing, do not fail to do it, however many obstacles may set themselves before you, for, as I have said, if you only begin, I shall consider the case concluded.”

Seeing Anselmo’s resolute will, and not knowing what more examples to bring him or what more reasons to show him so that he would not follow it, and seeing that he threatened to disclose his wicked desire to someone else, Lotario, to avoid a greater evil, decided to satisfy him and do what he asked, with the purpose and intention of guiding the business in such a way that, without unsettling Camila’s thoughts, Anselmo would be left satisfied; and so he answered him that he should not share his thought with anyone else, for he was taking that enterprise upon himself, and would begin it when he pleased. Anselmo embraced him tenderly and lovingly, and thanked him for his offer as if he had done him some great favor; and the two of them agreed that the work should begin from the very next day; that he would give him the opportunity and time to talk to Camila alone, and would likewise give him money and jewels to give her and offer her. He advised him to serenade her and to write verses in her praise, and said that, if Lotario did not want to take the trouble of making them, he would make them himself. To everything Lotario agreed, with an intention very different from what Anselmo thought.

And with this agreement they went back to Anselmo’s house, where they found Camila anxious and worried, waiting for her husband, because that day he was later in coming home than usual.

Lotario went off to his own house, and Anselmo stayed in his, as happy as Lotario was thoughtful, for he did not know what plan to devise to come out well from that ill-advised business. But that night he thought of a way to deceive Anselmo without offending Camila; and the next day he came to dine with his friend, and was well received by Camila, who received and entertained him with great goodwill, knowing the goodwill her husband bore him. They finished dining, the cloth was removed, and Anselmo told Lotario to stay there with Camila while he went on an urgent matter of business, for he would be back within an hour and a half. Camila begged him not to go, and Lotario offered to keep him company, but it was of no use with Anselmo; instead, he pressed Lotario to stay and wait for him, because he had a matter of great importance to discuss with him. He also told Camila not to leave Lotario alone until he came back. In fact, he knew how to feign the need, or the folly, of his absence so well that no one could have understood it was feigned. Anselmo went off, and Camila and Lotario were left alone at the table, because all the rest of the household had gone to their meal. Lotario saw himself set in the lists where his friend wished him to be, with the enemy before him, who could have conquered a squadron of armed knights with her beauty alone: consider whether Lotario had reason to fear her.

But what he did was to put his elbow on the arm of his chair and his open hand against his cheek, and, begging Camila’s pardon for his ill manners, he said he would like to rest a little until Anselmo came back. Camila answered that he would rest better on the dais than in the chair, and so she begged him to go in and sleep there. Lotario would not, and he stayed there asleep until Anselmo returned, who, finding Camila in her room and Lotario sleeping, believed that, since he had been away so long, the two must already have had time to talk, and even to sleep, and he could not wait for Lotario to wake, so as to go out with him again and ask him about his luck. Everything turned out as he wished: Lotario woke, and then the two went out of the house, and so he asked him what he wanted to know, and Lotario answered that it had not seemed to him right to reveal himself fully the first time; and so he had done nothing but praise Camila for her beauty, telling her that in the whole city there was no other talk but of her beauty and good sense, and that this had seemed to him a good beginning for making his way into her goodwill and disposing her to listen to him with pleasure another time, using in this the device the devil uses when he wants to deceive someone who is on the watchtower, looking out for himself: he transforms himself into an angel of light, though he is one of darkness, and, putting fair appearances before him, in the end he reveals who he is and has his way, if his deceit is not found out at the beginning. All this pleased Anselmo greatly, and he said he would give him the same opportunity every day, even if he did not leave the house, for he would busy himself in it with things such that Camila could not come to know of his scheme.

It happened, then, that many days went by in which, without Lotario saying a word to Camila, he answered Anselmo that he was talking to her and could never draw from her the slightest sign of yielding to anything that was wrong, nor even get one hint of a shadow of hope; on the contrary, he said she threatened him that if he did not put that wicked thought out of his head, she would tell her husband. “Very well,” said Anselmo. “So far Camila has resisted words; we must see how she resists deeds: tomorrow I will give you two thousand gold escudos for you to offer her, and even give her, and as many more for you to buy jewels to lure her with; for women are usually fond, and more so if they are beautiful, however chaste they may be, of dressing well and going about in finery; and if she resists this temptation, I shall be satisfied and shall give you no more trouble.”

Lotario answered that, since he had begun, he would carry that enterprise through to the end, though he expected to come out of it weary and defeated. The next day he received the four thousand escudos, and with them four thousand perplexities, because he did not know what to tell himself so as to lie anew; but, in the end, he decided to tell him that Camila was as untouched by gifts and promises as by words, and that there was no point in wearing himself out any further, because all the time was being spent in vain.

But fortune, which was guiding things another way, so ordered it that, Anselmo having left Lotario and Camila alone, as he used to do at other times, he shut himself up in a room and through the keyhole watched and listened to what the two were saying, and saw that in more than half an hour Lotario did not say a word to Camila, nor would he have said one if he had been there a century, and he realized that all his friend had told him about Camila’s answers was fiction and lies. And, to see whether this was so, he came out of the room, and, calling Lotario aside, asked him what news there was and in what temper Camila was. Lotario answered that he did not mean to put another stitch into that business, because she answered so harshly and sourly that he would not have the heart to say anything to her again.

“Ah, Lotario, Lotario,” said Anselmo, “how badly you answer what you owe me and the great trust I place in you! I have just been watching you through the opening this key allows, and I have seen that you have not said a word to Camila, from which I gather that you have yet to say even the first ones to her; and if this is so, as it no doubt is, why do you deceive me, or why do you want to take from me by your craft the means I might find to achieve my desire?”

Anselmo said no more, but what he had said was enough to leave Lotario abashed and confused; and he, almost taking it as a point of honor to have been caught in a lie, swore to Anselmo that from that moment he would take it so much upon himself to satisfy him and not lie to him that he would see it, if he spied on him with care; all the more since there would be no need to take any pains, because the pains he meant to take in satisfying him would remove all suspicion. Anselmo believed him, and, to give him a more secure and less startled opportunity, he decided to absent himself from his house for eight days, going to the house of a friend of his in a village a short way from the city, with which friend he arranged that he should send for him very urgently, so as to have a pretext with Camila for his departure.

Unhappy and ill-advised that you are, Anselmo! What is it you are doing? What is it you are plotting? What is it you are arranging? Consider that you are working against yourself, plotting your own dishonor and arranging your own ruin. Your wife Camila is good, you possess her quietly and peacefully, no one alarms your pleasure, her thoughts do not go beyond the walls of her house, you are her heaven on earth, the goal of her desires, the fulfillment of her pleasures, and the measure by which she measures her will, fitting it in everything to yours and to heaven’s. Then if the mine of her honor, beauty, modesty, and retirement gives you without any labor all the wealth it holds and you can desire, why do you want to dig deeper into the earth and look for new veins of new and never-seen treasure, putting yourself in danger of the whole thing caving in, since, after all, it rests on the weak props of her frail nature? Consider that it is just that he who seeks the impossible should be denied the possible, as a poet put it better, saying:

In death I go seeking life,
in sickness I seek for health,
in prison I seek for freedom,
in what is closed a way out,
and in the traitor, loyalty.
But my fortune, from which
I never hope for any good,
has decreed it with the heavens
that, since I ask the impossible,
they will not give me the possible.

The next day Anselmo went to the village, leaving word with Camila that while he was away Lotario would come to see to the house and to take his meals with her; that she should take care to treat him as she would his own person. Camila, as a sensible and honorable woman, was distressed by the order her husband left her, and told him to bear in mind that it was not right for anyone, in his absence, to occupy his seat at table, and that if he did it because he did not trust her to know how to manage his house, he should test her this once, and he would see by experience that she was equal to greater cares. Anselmo replied that this was his pleasure, and that she had nothing to do but bow her head and obey him. Camila said that she would do so, though against her will. Anselmo left, and the next day Lotario came to his house, where he was received by Camila with a loving and modest welcome; and she never put herself anywhere Lotario might see her alone, because she always went about surrounded by her menservants and maidservants, especially by a maid of hers named Leonela, whom she loved dearly, because the two had been brought up together from childhood in Camila’s parents’ house, and when she married Anselmo she brought her with her.

In the first three days Lotario never said anything to her, although he could have, when the cloth was removed and the servants went off in great haste to eat, for so Camila had ordered them. And Leonela even had orders to eat before Camila and never to leave her side; but she, who had her mind set on other matters to her own taste and needed those hours and that place to busy herself with her own pleasures, did not always carry out her mistress’s command; on the contrary, she left them alone, as if that were what she had been ordered. But Camila’s modest presence, the gravity of her face, the composure of her person were such that they put a bridle on Lotario’s tongue.

But the good that Camila’s many virtues did, by imposing silence on Lotario’s tongue, redounded rather to the harm of them both, because if the tongue was silent, the mind ran on and had leisure to contemplate, part by part, all the perfections of goodness and beauty Camila possessed, enough to make a marble statue fall in love, let alone a heart of flesh.

Lotario gazed at her in the time and place in which he ought to have been speaking to her, and considered how worthy she was of being loved; and this consideration began little by little to make assaults upon the respect he owed Anselmo, and a thousand times he wanted to leave the city and go where Anselmo would never see him, nor he see Camila; but by now the pleasure he found in looking at her held him back and stood in his way. He did violence to himself and fought with himself to cast off and not feel the delight that led him to look at Camila. He blamed himself when alone for his folly, called himself a bad friend and even a bad Christian; he made reasonings and comparisons between himself and Anselmo, and they all ended in saying that Anselmo’s madness and trust had been greater than his own lack of faithfulness, and that if he had as good an excuse before God as before men for what he was thinking of doing, he would not fear punishment for his fault.

In effect, Camila’s beauty and goodness, together with the opportunity the ignorant husband had put into his hands, brought Lotario’s loyalty to the ground. And, heeding nothing but what his pleasure inclined him to, at the end of three days of Anselmo’s absence, during which he was in continual battle to resist his desires, he began to woo Camila, with such agitation and such loving words that Camila was dumbfounded, and did nothing but rise from where she was and go into her room, without answering him a word. But this coldness did not make hope fail in Lotario, for hope is always born together with love; on the contrary, he prized Camila the more. She, having seen in Lotario what she would never have thought, did not know what to do. And, since it seemed to her neither safe nor right to give him occasion or opportunity to speak to her again, she decided to send that very night, as she did, a servant of hers with a note to Anselmo, in which she wrote these words: