Page 139 - THE DECAMERON: A Visionary Journey in 100 Stories and 100 Etchings by Petru Russu

seen going to pardonings with a parcel of paternosters in her ague-fits,' and such-like catches. But to make no more words
hand, talking of nothing but the lives of the holy Fathers and about it, I tell you at once that there is no person in the world
the wounds of St. Francis, and was generally reputed a saint. to whom you could open your mind with more advantage than
In due time, the lady opened her whole mind to the beldam. to me. There is no gentleman so fine that I dare not speak my
mind to him, nor any so harsh and forbidding that I do not know
"My daughter," replied the beldam, "God, who knows all things, how to soften him and fashion him to my will. Tell me only what
knows that you will do very rightly indeed. Were it for no other you would have, and leave the rest to me. But one word more: I
reason, it would be meet for you and every other young woman pray you to have me in kindly remembrance, for I am poor. You
to do so, that the heyday of youth be not wasted. There is no shall henceforth go shares with me in all my indulgences and
grief like knowing that it has been wasted. And what the devil every paternoster that I say, that God may make thereof light
are we women fit for when we are old except to pore over the and tapers for your dead." With this, she ended.
cinders on the hearth? If anyone knows and may attest it, it is I,
who, now that I am old, call to mind the time I let slip from me, So the lady came to an understanding with the beldam. As soon
not without most sore and bitter and fruitless regret. Though it as she set eyes on a boy who often came along that street, and
was not all wasted, for I would not have you think I was entirely of whom the lady gave her a particular description, she would
without sense, yet I did not make the best use of it. know what to do. The lady gave her a chunk of salt meat and
bade her God-speed. The beldam soon smuggled the boy into
When I think of it, and that I am now, as you see me, such a the lady's chamber, and not long after, another, such being
hag that I can hope for no spark of fire from anyone, God knows the lady's humor. Standing in perpetual dread of her husband,
how I rue it. Now with men, it is otherwise: they are born fit for she was disposed to make the most of her opportunities. One
a thousand uses, not for this alone. Most of them are of much of these days, her husband was to sup in the evening with a
greater consequence in old age than in youth. But women are fit friend named Ercolano. The lady bade the beldam bring her a
for nothing but this, and it is only because they bear children that boy as pretty and dainty as could be found in Perugia, and so
they are cherished. If not otherwise, you may assure yourself of the beldam did. But as the lady and the boy were set at table to
this if you consider that we are ever ready for it, which is not sup, they heard Pietro's voice at the door, bidding them open to
the case with men. Besides, one woman will tire out many men him. The lady gave herself up for dead, but, wanting to screen
without being herself tired out. Seeing then that it is for this we the boy, and knowing not where else to convey or conceal him,
are born, I tell you again that you will do very rightly to give your she hid him under a hen-coop that stood in a veranda near the
husband your loaf for his cake, so that in your old age your soul chamber where they were supping and threw over it a sorry
may have no cause of complaint against your flesh. Everyone mattress she had emptied of its straw that day. This done, she
has just as much of this life as they appropriate, and this is hastened to open the door to her husband, saying as he entered,
especially true of women, who must seize the moment as it flies "You have gulped your supper mighty quickly tonight."
much more than men. Indeed, as you may see for yourself, when
we grow old, neither husband nor any other man will spare us Pietro replied, "We have not so much as tasted it." "How so?"
a glance. On the contrary, they banish us to the kitchen to tell inquired the lady. "I will tell you," said Pietro. "No sooner were
stories to the cat and count the pots and pans. Or worse, they we set at table, Ercolano, his wife, and I, than we heard a sneeze
make rhymes about us: 'To the damsel dainty bits; to the beldam close to us. Though it was repeated, we paid no heed. But as

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