Mrs Rosie and the Priest

by Giovanni Boccaccio

  Giovanni Boccaccio

  * * *

  MRS ROSIE AND THE PRIEST

  Translated by Peter Hainsworth

  Contents

  Andreuccio’s da Perugia’s Neapolitan adventures

  Ricciardo da Chinzica loses his wife

  Mrs Rosie and the Priest

  Patient Griselda

  Follow Penguin

  GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO

  Born 1313, Tuscany

  Died 1375, Tuscany

  Selection taken from Boccaccio’s Decameron, translated by Peter Hainsworth.

  BOCCACCIO IN PENGUIN CLASSICS

  The Decameron

  Tales from the Decameron

  Andreuccio da Perugia’s Neapolitan adventures

  I was told some time ago about a young man from Perugia called Andreuccio, the son of a certain Pietro and a horse-dealer by trade. Having heard that horses were trading well in Naples, he put five-hundred gold florins in his bag and went off there with some other merchants, never having previously been away from home. He arrived on a Sunday evening, about vesper time, got the necessary information from his innkeeper and was in the market square early the next morning. He saw a lot of horses, many of which met with his approval, and did a good deal of bargaining without being able to agree a price for any of them. But he was keen to show that he was there to do some buying and naively and imprudently pulled out his bag of florins several times before the eyes of people coming and going past him. It was while he was negotiating, with his bag in full view, that a young Sicilian woman walked past. She was very beautiful, but ready to give any man what he wanted for a small payment. He didn’t see her, but she saw his bag and immediately said to herself, ‘Wouldn’t I be a lucky one if that money were mine?’ Then she went on her way.

  There was old woman with her who was also Sicilian. As soon as she saw Andreuccio, she let the girl go on and hurried over to give him an affectionate hug. The young woman noticed and, without saying anything, stopped and waited for her on one side. Andreuccio, who had turned round and recognized the old woman, greeted her with great warmth. She promised to come and see him at his inn, but didn’t keep him talking for too long just then and soon left. Andreuccio went back to his bargaining, though he made no purchases that morning. After seeing first the bag and then the intimacy with the old servant, the young woman began to wonder if she might get hold of some or all of the money. She asked a few cautious questions about who the young man was, where he was from, what he was doing there and how she came to know him. The old servant gave her all the information she wanted, almost in as much detail as Andreuccio might have supplied himself, being able to do this because she had spent a long time with his father first in Sicily and then in Perugia. She likewise told her where he was lodging and why he had come to Naples.

  Once the young woman was fully informed about his family and their names, she had the basis for playing a clever trick that would bring her what she wanted. Back at her house she made sure that the old woman was busy all day so that she couldn’t go and see Andreuccio. She had a much younger servant-girl to whom she had given a very good training in the sort of work she had in mind, and towards evening she sent her to the inn where Andreuccio was staying. When she arrived, she found him by chance standing alone in the doorway. She asked for Andreuccio and he said that he was the very man. At which she drew him to one side.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘there is a noble lady in this town who would appreciate a conversation with you, if you were so inclined.’

  Andreuccio thought carefully for a moment when he heard this. He decided that he was a good-looking lad and deduced that this lady must have fallen for him, as if there were no other fine young men in Naples just then apart from himself. He quickly said that he was up for it, and asked where and when this lady wanted to have a talk with him.

  The young servant-girl replied, ‘She’s waiting for you in her house, sir, whenever you feel like coming along.’

  ‘Well, you lead the way and I’ll follow on,’ said Andreuccio immediately, with no thought of letting anyone in the inn know.

  So the girl led him to the Sicilian woman’s house, which was in a district called Malpertugio, a name meaning Bad Passage, which gives a clear idea of just how respectable a district it was. But Andreuccio, knowing nothing of this and quite unsuspecting, thought he was going to a most respectable house to see a lady of some standing, and confidently followed the girl into the house. As they were climbing the stairs, she called out to her mistress, ‘Here’s Andreuccio’, and he saw her appear at the top, waiting for him.

  She was still young, with a full figure and a lovely face, and her clothes and jewellery were tastefully ornate. When Andreuccio was closer, she came down three steps towards him, her arms wide, and, flinging them round his neck, stayed like that for a while without saying a word, as if too overcome to speak. Then she tearfully kissed his forehead and said in a broken voice, ‘O my precious Andreuccio, welcome to my house!’

  Such a heartfelt reception amazed Andreuccio, and he replied quite dazed, ‘Well, it’s wonderful to meet you, my lady!’

  After this she took him by the hand and led him into the main room, and from there, without saying another word, into her private chamber, which was redolent with the scents of roses, orange blossom and other flowers. Andreuccio noticed a splendid curtained bed, and an abundance of beautiful dresses arranged on hangers in the south Italian way, and many other fine and costly items. In his inexperience he was fully convinced by all this that the woman could be nothing but a great lady. Once they were seated together on a chest that was at the foot of her bed, she embarked on the following speech.

  ‘I am quite certain, Andreuccio, that you are startled at being embraced and wept over by me in this way. After all, you don’t know me and and may never have heard my name mentioned. But in a moment you are going to hear something which will perhaps amaze you even more. The fact is, I am your sister. And I can tell you that, since God has granted me the enormous grace of letting me see one of my brothers before I die – though of course I want to see all of you – I shall not die unconsoled. Perhaps you have never heard a word of this. So I shall happily tell you all about it.

  ‘As I think you may have been told, Pietro – that is, your father and mine – lived for a long time in Palermo. Thanks to his native goodness and appealing character he gained the affections of those who came to know him and still has a place in their hearts. But, among those most attached to him, there was someone who loved him more than anyone else, and that was my mother, who was a noble lady and recently widowed. She loved him so much that she put aside all fears of her father and brothers and any concern for her honour, and entered into intimate relations with him. As a result I was born into the world and am now the person you see before you.

  ‘A little later, when a reason arose for Pietro to return to Perugia, he left me, still a very little girl, with my mother. From everything I heard, he never gave me or her another thought. If he had not been my father, I would be very critical of him, considering the ingratitude he showed to my mother – and let’s leave aside the love he should have felt for me his daughter, and not by a servant-girl or some woman of easy virtue either. My mother was inspired by the truest form of love when, knowing nothing of who he was, she put herself and everything she had in his hands. But there you are. Wrongs of long ago are more easily criticized than put right.

  ‘So he left me a little girl in Palermo. When I had grown into more or less the woman you see before you, my mother, who was a rich lady, married me to a man from Agrigento, an upstanding man of noble rank. Out of love for myself and my mother he moved to Palermo, and there, being very much on the Guelf side, he beca
me involved in plotting with our King Charles. King Frederick got wind of the plot before any of our plans could be acted on, and so we had to flee Sicily just at the moment when I was expecting to become the finest lady there had ever been on the island. We took with us what few things we could – I mean few in comparison to all the possessions we had – and, leaving our lands and mansions behind, escaped to this city. We found King Charles very grateful. He partially compensated us for the losses we had suffered on his behalf. He gave us lands and houses, and he still gives my husband, your brother-in-law, a substantial pension, as you’ll soon be able to see. So that is how I came to be here, and how, thanks to God’s grace, though not at all to you, I now see you before me, my sweet brother.’

  With this she clasped him to her again and kissed his forehead, still weeping tenderly.

  She told her cock-and-bull story in a supremely coherent and convincing way, with not a hesitation or stutter. Andreuccio recalled that his father really had been in Palermo and he knew from his own experience what young men are like, and how prone they are to falling in love. What with the tender tears, embraces and decidedly unamorous kisses, he was convinced that what she said was more than true. When she finished, he made the following reply.

  ‘My lady, you must not be shocked by my own amazement. To be candid, either my father for some reason of his own never spoke about you and your mother, or if he did speak of you, not a whisper reached my ears. So I had no more knowledge of you than if you had never existed. But it’s all the more precious to me to have found you, my sister, in this place, because I’m here all alone and this was the thing I least expected. And to tell the truth, I can’t imagine your not being precious to the grandest businessman I can think of, let alone to a small-scale merchant like myself. But please, explain one thing for me. How did you come to know I was here?’

  ‘I was told this morning,’ she replied. ‘And the person who told me is a poor woman who spends a lot of time here with me, the reason being that, from what she says, she was with our father for a long time in both Palermo and Perugia. If it hadn’t seemed to me more honourable for you to come here to what is your house than for me to come and see you at someone else’s, I would have been with you ages ago.’

  After this she started putting precise questions to him about his relatives, identifying each one by name. Andreuccio told her about them all, becoming more and more willing to believe what he should not have believed at all.

  Since they kept on talking for a long time and it was very hot, she called for white wine and sweetmeats, and ensured that Andreuccio was duly served. He made to leave after this since it was now dinnertime, but she wouldn’t allow it. Looking deeply distressed, she flung her arms round him, saying, ‘Oh, poor me, I can tell I don’t really matter to you! To think that you’re here with a sister you’ve never seen before, in her house, where you should have come and stayed when you arrived, and you want to go off and have your dinner in an inn. No, you’ll dine with me, and though my husband is not here, I’m very sorry to say, I’ll do what little a lady is capable of to see you are treated with some degree of honour.’

  Andreuccio could only come up with one reply.

  ‘You do matter to me,’ he said, ‘as much as any sister should. But if I don’t go, I shall keep them waiting for me for dinner all evening, which would be really churlish.’

  ‘Lord in heaven,’ she said, ‘do you think I’ve nobody in the house I can send to tell them not to expect you? Though you would be doing a finer thing, not to say your duty, if you sent a message to your friends inviting them to come and dine here. Then afterwards, if you were set on leaving, you and all the rest could go off in one big party.’

  Andreuccio replied that he had no wish to see his friends that evening, and that, if this was how she felt, she should treat him as she pleased. She then made a show of sending a message to the inn telling them not to expect him for dinner. After this they talked on for a long time before sitting down to eat. They were served in a splendid fashion with a series of dishes, the woman cunningly prolonging the dinner well into the night. When they got up from the table, and Andreuccio expressed a desire to leave, she said that she could not possibly allow it. Naples was not a city for anyone to walk through at night, especially a stranger. She had sent a message to say he should not be expected for dinner and then she had sent another regarding where he was staying. He believed everything she said, and was delighted, in his deluded state, to stay on.

  At her instigation conversation after dinner was prolonged and varied. Late into the night she left Andreuccio in her own chamber, with a young servant-boy to show him anything he needed, while she herself went off to another room with her maids.

  It was very hot and as soon as he saw he was alone Andreuccio removed his jacket and peeled off his leggings, which he left over the bedhead. Feeling nature calling him to lighten his stomach of the excess weight within it, he asked the servant where one did that sort of thing. The boy pointed to a door in a corner of the room.

  ‘Go in there,’ he said.

  Andreuccio went insouciantly though the door. By chance he brought one of his feet down on a board, the other end of which was no longer attached to the joist on which it was resting. The result was that the board swung up in the air and then crashed downwards, taking Andreuccio with it. God was kind to him and he did himself no harm in the tumble, although he fell from a considerable height, but he was thoroughly covered in the horrible filth that the place was full of. To explain the arrangement in order to give you a clearer picture of what I’ve just said and what follows, two narrow beams had been fixed over the sort of narrow alleyway we often see separating two houses, with some boards nailed to them and a place to sit on fitted. It was one of these boards which had fallen with Andreuccio.

  When he found himself down below in the alleyway, he was extremely upset at what had happened and began calling out to the boy. But, as soon as he had heard him fall, the boy had rushed to tell his mistress. She in her turn rushed into the bedroom, quickly looked to see if his clothes were there and found them. With them was the money, which, crazily, the ever suspicious Andreuccio always carried on his person. The Palermo tart, who now had what she had schemed for by turning into the sister of the visitor from Perugia, couldn’t care less any more about Andreuccio. She went promptly over to the door which Andreuccio had passed through when he fell, and closed it.

  When the boy didn’t reply, Andreuccio started calling more loudly, but to no avail. He was now becoming suspicious and beginning, somewhat late in the day, to have an inkling of the trickery. He climbed on to the low wall separating the alleyway from the street and, once down on the other side, found his way to the door of the house, which he easily recognized. He stood there for a long time, vainly calling out and shaking and banging on the door. He could now see the full extent of his misfortune quite clearly, which reduced him to tears.

  ‘Oh, poor me,’ he began saying. ‘How little time it’s taken for me to lose five-hundred florins and a sister too!’

  After a lot more of this he began again beating on the door and calling out. The result was that many people living nearby woke up and then, when the din became unbearable, got themselves out of bed. One of the lady’s female servants appeared at a window, looking all sleepy, and called out in an irritated voice, ‘Who’s banging away down there?’

  ‘Oh, don’t you know me?’ said Andreuccio. ‘I’m Andreuccio, the brother of Lady Fiordiliso.’

  The servant replied, ‘My good man, if you’ve had too much to drink, go and sleep it off and come back in the morning. I don’t know anything about any Andreuccio or anything else you’re gabbling on about. Do us a favour, please go away and let us get some sleep.’

  ‘What?’ said Andreuccio. ‘Don’t you really know what I’m saying? Oh, you must do. But if family relations in Sicily are like that and get forgotten as quickly as this, at least let me have back the clothes I left with you and I’ll be glad to go o
n my way with only the Lord for company.’

  The servant almost broke out laughing.

  ‘Good man,’ she said, ‘I think you’re dreaming.’

  And even before she finished speaking, she was back inside with the window shut.

  Andreuccio was now fully aware of his losses and the pain of the realization made him so angry it almost drove him wild. He could not recover what he had lost through words and he resorted to physical violence. He picked up a big stone and began savagely beating at the door again, only now with much more force. At this many of the neighbours who had been woken up and were out of their beds started thinking that he was some no-gooder who was inventing the whole palaver to bother the good woman. When the banging got too much for them, they started calling out from their windows, as if they were the neighbourhood dogs barking all together at some stray intruder.

  ‘It’s an outrage,’ they said, ‘coming at this hour of night to respectable women’s houses with all this claptrap. Oh, go away, for God’s sake, and please let us sleep. If you have anything to sort out with her, you can come back tomorrow. Just don’t be such a blasted nuisance tonight.’

  What they were saying perhaps encouraged the good Sicilian woman’s pimp, who was inside the house, though he had not been seen or heard till now by Andreuccio. He came to the window and in his best horrible and savage voice called out loudly, ‘Who’s that down there?’

  Andreuccio looked up when he heard this and saw someone who, so far as he could tell (which was not much), had the air of a man to be taken seriously. He had a thick black beard and was yawning and rubbing his eyes, as if he’d just awoken from deep sleep.

  ‘I’m a brother of the lady of the house,’ replied Andreuccio nervously.

  The man did not wait for him to go on.