Volume I (1605)

CHAPTER XXXIII

Which recounts the novel of The Man Who Was Recklessly Curious202

image

In Florence, a rich and famous Italian city in the province called Tuscany, lived two wealthy, eminent gentlemen who were such good friends that they were known by everyone as the two friends. They were bachelors, young men who were of the same age and habits, all of which was sufficient cause for both of them to feel a mutual, reciprocal friendship. True, Anselmo was somewhat more inclined to amorous pursuits than Lotario, whose preferred pastime was the hunt, but when the occasion presented itself, Anselmo would leave his pleasures to follow those of Lotario, and Lotario would leave his to pursue those of Anselmo, and in this fashion their desires were so attuned that a well-adjusted clock did not run as well.

Anselmo was deeply in love with a distinguished and beautiful girl from the same city, the daughter of such excellent parents, and so excellent in and of herself, that he decided, with his friend Lotario’s agreement, without which he did nothing, to ask her parents for her hand, which he did; his intermediary was Lotario, and he concluded the arrangements so successfully for his friend that in a short time Anselmo found himself in possession of what he desired; Camila was so happy at having Anselmo for a husband that she unceasingly gave her thanks to heaven, and to Lotario, through whose intervention so much contentment had come to her. In the first days of the nuptial celebrations, which are always filled with joy, Lotario continued to visit the house of his friend Anselmo as he had before, wishing to honor him, congratulate him, and rejoice with him in every way he could, but when the celebrations were over and the frequency of visits and congratulations had diminished, Lotario carefully began to reduce the number of his visits to Anselmo’s house, for it seemed to him—as it reasonably would seem to all discerning people—that one should not visit or linger at the houses of married friends as if both were still single; although good and true friendship cannot and should not be suspect for any reason, the honor of the married man is so delicate that it apparently can be offended even by his own brothers, let alone his friends.

Anselmo noticed Lotario’s withdrawal and complained to him bitterly, saying that if he had known that matrimony meant they could not communicate as they once had, he never would have married, and if the good relations the two of them had enjoyed when he was a bachelor had earned them the sweet name of the two friends, then he would not, merely for the sake of appearing circumspect and for no other reason, permit so well-known and amiable a name to be lost; therefore he begged Lotario, if such a term could legitimately be used between them, that he make Anselmo’s house his own again, and come and go as he had before, assuring him that his wife, Camila, had no wish or desire other than what he wanted her to have, and she, knowing how truly the two men had loved each other, was bewildered at seeing him so aloof.

To these and the many other arguments that Anselmo used to persuade Lotario to visit his house as he had in the past, Lotario responded with so much prudence, discretion, and discernment that Anselmo was satisfied with his friend’s good intentions, and they agreed that twice a week and on feast days Lotario would eat with Anselmo in his house, and although this was their agreement, Lotario resolved to do no more than what he thought would enhance the honor of his friend, whose reputation he valued more than he did his own. He said, and rightly so, that the man to whom heaven has granted a beautiful wife had to be as careful about the friends he brought home as he was about the women with whom his wife associated, because those things not done or arranged on open squares, or in temples, or at public festivals, or on devotional visits to churches—activities that husbands may not always deny to their wives—can be arranged and expedited in the house of her most trusted friend or kinswoman.

Lotario also said that a married man needed to have a friend who would alert him to any negligence in his behavior, since it often happens that because of the great love the husband has for his wife, and his desire not to distress her, he does not warn or tell her to do or not do certain things that could either redound to his honor or cause his censure, but being advised by his friend, he could easily resolve everything. Where could one find a friend as discerning and loyal and true as the one described by Lotario? Certainly I do not know; Lotario alone was the kind of friend who, with utmost care and solicitude, looked after his friend’s honor and wished to lessen, reduce, and diminish the number of days he went to his house so that it would not seem amiss to the idle crowd and its wandering, malicious eyes that a wealthy, noble, and wellborn young man, possessing the other good qualities he believed he had, habitually visited the house of a woman as beautiful as Camila; although her virtue and modesty could put a stop to any malicious tongue, he did not want any doubts cast on her good name or his friend’s; as a consequence, on most of the visiting days that they had agreed upon, he was occupied and involved in other matters that he claimed were unavoidable, and so a large portion of the time they did spend together was devoted to the complaints of one friend and the excuses of the other.

As it happened, on one of these occasions, when the two men were walking through a meadow outside the city, Anselmo said these words to Lotario:

“Did you think, Lotario my friend, that I cannot respond with gratitude that matches the bounty I have received: the mercies God has shown in making me the son of parents such as mine, and granting me with so generous a hand so many advantages, in what is called nature as well as in fortune, and especially His granting me you as a friend and Camila as my wife, two treasures I esteem, if not as much as I ought to, at least as much as I can? Yet despite all these elements that usually make up the whole that allows men to live happily, I am the most desperate and discontented man in the entire world, because for some days now I have been troubled and pursued by a desire so strange and out of the ordinary that I am amazed at myself, and blame and reprimand myself, and attempt to silence it and hide it away from my thoughts, though I have been no more capable of keeping it secret than if my intention actually had been to reveal it to the entire world. And since, in fact, it must be made public, I want to confide and entrust it to you, certain that with the effort you make, as my true friend, to cure me, I soon shall find myself free of the anguish it causes me, and my joy at your solicitude will be as great as my unhappiness at my own madness.”

Anselmo’s words left Lotario perplexed, and he did not know where so long an introduction or preamble would lead, and although in his imagination he pondered what the desire could be that was troubling his friend, he never hit the mark of the truth, and in order to quickly end the torment that this uncertainty caused him, Lotario said that it was manifestly insulting to their great friendship for Anselmo to go through so many preliminaries before telling him his most secret thoughts, for he was certain he could promise either the advice that would make them bearable or the remedy that would end them.

“What you say is true,” responded Anselmo, “and with that confidence I will tell you, friend Lotario, that the desire that plagues me is my wondering if Camila, my wife, is as good and perfect as I think she is, and I cannot learn the truth except by testing her so that the test reveals the worth of her virtue, as fire shows the worth of gold. Because it seems to me, dear friend, that a woman is not virtuous if she is not solicited, and that she alone is strong who does not bend to promises, gifts, tears, and the constant importunities of lovers who woo her. Why be grateful when a woman is good,” he said, “if no one urges her to be bad? Why is it of consequence that she is shy and reserved if she does not have the occasion to lose her restraint and knows she has a husband who, at her first rash act, would take her life? In short, I do not hold the woman who is virtuous because of fear or lack of opportunity in the same esteem as the one who is courted and pursued and emerges wearing the victor’s crown. For these reasons, and many others I could mention that support and strengthen this opinion, my desire is for Camila, my wife, to pass through these difficulties, and be refined and prove her value in the fire of being wooed and courted by one worthy of desiring her; and if she emerges, as I believe she will, triumphant from this battle, I shall deem my good fortune unparalleled; I shall be able to say that the cup of my desires is filled to overflowing; I shall say that it fell to me to have a wife strong in virtue, about whom the Wise Man says, ‘Who will find her?’ And if the outcome is the contrary of what I expect, the pleasure of seeing that I was correct in my opinion will allow me to bear the sorrow that my costly experiment may reasonably cause me. And because you can say many things against my desire but none will succeed in stopping me from realizing it, I want you, my dear friend Lotario, to agree to be the instrument that will effect this plan born of my desire: I shall give you the opportunity to do so, and provide you with everything I think necessary for wooing a woman who is virtuous, honorable, reserved, and not mercenary. Among other reasons, I am moved to entrust you with this arduous undertaking because I know that if Camila is conquered by you, you will not carry the conquest to its conclusion but will do only what has to be done according to our agreement, and I shall not be offended except in desire, and the offense will remain hidden in the virtue of your silence, for I know very well that in any matter having to do with me, it will be as eternal as the silence of death. Therefore, if you want me to have a life that can be called a life, you must enter into this amorous battle, not in a lukewarm or dilatory fashion but with the zeal and diligence that my desire demands, and with the trust assured me by our friendship.”

These were the words that Anselmo said to Lotario, who listened so attentively to all of them that, except for those that have been recorded here, none passed his lips until Anselmo had finished; seeing that he had nothing else to say, and after looking at him for a long time as if he were looking at something amazing and terrifying that he had never seen before, Lotario said:

“I cannot persuade myself, O my dear friend Anselmo, that the things you have said are not a joke; if I had thought you were speaking in earnest, I would not have allowed you to go so far, and if I had stopped listening, I would have forestalled your long, impassioned speech. It surely seems to me that you don’t know me or I don’t know you. But no; I know very well that you are Anselmo, and you know that I am Lotario; the problem is that I think you are not the Anselmo you used to be, and you must have thought I was not the same Lotario, either, because the things you have said to me would not have been said by my friend Anselmo, and what you have asked of me would not have been asked of the Lotario you knew; good friends may test their friends and make use of them, as a poet said, usque ad aras, 203 which means that they must not make use of their friendship in things that go against God. If a pagan felt this about friendship, how much more important is it for a Christian to feel the same, for he knows that divine friendship must not be lost for the sake of human friendship. When a friend goes so far as to set aside the demands of heaven in order to respond to those of his friend, it should not be for vain, trivial things but for those on which the honor and life of his friend depend. Well, Anselmo, tell me now which of these is threatened, so that I can dare oblige you and do something as detestable as what you are asking. Neither one, certainly; rather, if I understand you, you are asking me to attempt and endeavor to take away your honor and your life, and mine as well. Because if I attempt to take away your honor, it is obvious that I take away your life, for the man without honor is worse than dead, and if, as you wish, I become the instrument that inflicts so much evil upon you, do I not lose my honor, and, by the same token, my life? Listen, Anselmo my friend, and have the patience not to respond until I finish telling you what I think of the demands your desire has made of you; there will be time for you to reply and for me to listen.”

“Gladly,” said Anselmo. “Say whatever you wish.”

And Lotario continued, saying:

“It seems to me, my dear Anselmo, that your mind is now in the state in which the Moors have theirs, for they cannot be made to understand the error of their sect with commentaries from Holy Scripture, or arguments that depend on the rational understanding or are founded on articles of faith; instead, they must be presented with palpable, comprehensible, intelligible, demonstrable, indubitable examples, with mathematical proofs that cannot be denied, as when one says, ‘If, from two equal parts, we remove equal parts, those parts that remain are also equal’; if they do not understand the words, as in fact they do not, then it must be shown to them with one’s hands, and placed before their eyes, yet even after all this, no one can persuade them of the truths of my holy religion. I must use the same terms and methods with you, because the desire that has been born in you is so misguided and so far beyond everything that has a shred of rationality in it that I think it would be a waste of time to try to make you understand your foolishness; for the moment I do not wish to give it another name. I am even tempted to leave you to your folly as punishment for your wicked desire, but my friendship for you does not permit me to be so harsh that I leave you in obvious danger of perdition. And so that you can see it clearly, tell me, Anselmo: haven’t you told me that I have to woo a reserved woman, persuade an honest woman, make offers to an unmercenary woman, serve a prudent woman? Yes, you have said that to me. But if you know you have a wife who is reserved, honest, unmercenary, and prudent, what else do you need to know? And if you believe she will emerge victorious from all my assaults, as she undoubtedly will, what designations do you plan to give her afterward that are better than the ones she has now? What will she be afterward that is better than what she is now? Either your opinion of her is not what you say it is, or you do not know what you are asking. If your opinion of her is not what you say it is, why do you want to test her instead of treating her as an unfaithful woman and chastising her as you see fit? But if she is as virtuous as you believe, it would be reckless to experiment with that truth, for when you have done so, it will still have the same value it had before. Therefore we must conclude that attempting actions more likely to harm us than to benefit us is characteristic of rash minds bereft of reason, especially when they are not forced or compelled to undertake them, and when even from a distance it is obvious that the venture is an act of patent madness.

One attempts extremely difficult enterprises for the sake of God, or for the sake of the world, or both; those attempted for God are the ones undertaken by the saints, who endeavor to live the lives of angels in human bodies; those attempted with the world in mind are undertaken by men who endure such infinite seas, diverse climates, and strange peoples in order to acquire great riches. And those ventured for God and the world together are undertaken by valiant soldiers who, as soon as they see in the enemy defenses an opening no larger than the one made by a cannon ball, set aside all fear, do not consider or notice the clear danger that threatens them, and, borne on the wings of their desire to defend their faith, their nation, and their king, hurl themselves boldly into the midst of the thousand possible deaths that await them. These are perilous actions that are ordinarily ventured, and it is honor, glory, and advantage to attempt them despite the many obstacles and dangers. But the one you say you wish to attempt and put into effect will not win you the glory of God, or great riches, or fame among men; even if the outcome is as you desire, you will not be more content, more wealthy, more honored than you are now, and if it is not, you will find yourself in the greatest misery imaginable; then it will be to no avail to think that no one is aware of the misfortune that has befallen you; your knowing will be enough to make you suffer and grieve.

As confirmation of this truth, I want to recite for you a stanza written by the famous poet Luis Tansilo,204 at the end of the first part of his The Tears of St. Peter, which says:

There grows grief and there grows shame

in Peter, when the day has dawned,

and though he sees no one is near

he feels a deep shame for his sin:

for a great heart will be moved

to shame, even if unseen,

when it transgresses, shame though

seen by nought but earth and sky.

In similar fashion, you will not escape sorrow even if it is secret; instead, you will weep constantly, if not tears from your eyes, then tears of blood from your heart, like those shed by the simple doctor who, as our poet recounts, agreed to the test of the goblet,205 while the prudent and more rational Reinaldos refused; although this is poetic fiction, it contains hidden moral truths worthy of being heeded and understood and imitated, especially if, in light of what I am going to say to you now, you come to realize the magnitude of the error you wish to commit.

Tell me, Anselmo: if heaven, or good luck, had made you the possessor and legitimate owner of a fine diamond whose worth and value satisfied every jeweler who saw it, and all of them were of one opinion and said in one voice that in value, size, and purity it was all that such a stone could be, and you believed this as well, having no knowledge to the contrary, would it be reasonable for you to take that diamond, and place it between an anvil and a hammer, and by dint of powerful blows test if it was as hard and fine as they said? Moreover, in the event you did this, and the stone withstood so foolish a test, it would not, for that reason, gain in value or fame, but if it shattered, which is possible, wouldn’t everything be lost? Yes, certainly, and its owner would be thought a fool by everyone.

Then understand, Anselmo my friend, that Camila is a fine diamond, both in your estimation and in that of others, and there is no reason to put her at risk of shattering, for even if she remains whole, she cannot become more precious than she is now; and if she fails and does not resist, consider how you would feel without her, and how correctly you would blame yourself for having been the cause of her ruination and your own. For there is no jewel in the world as valuable as a chaste and honorable woman, and women’s honor consists entirely of the good opinion others have of them; since you know that the good opinion people have of your wife is as high as it can be, why do you want to cast doubt upon this truth? Look, my friend: woman is an imperfect creature, and one should not lay down obstacles where she can stumble and fall; instead, one should remove them and clear all impediments from her path so that she may run easily and quickly to reach the perfection she lacks, which consists in being virtuous.

Naturalists tells us that the ermine is an animal with pure white fur, and when hunters want to trap it, they use this trick: knowing the places where it customarily travels and can be found, they obstruct those places with mud, and then they beat the bushes and drive it toward that spot, and when the ermine reaches the mud it stops and lets itself be captured and caught rather than pass through the mire and risk soiling and losing the whiteness that it values more than liberty and life. The honest and chaste woman is the ermine, and the purity of her virtue is whiter and cleaner than snow; the man who wants her not to lose it but to keep and preserve it must treat her in a manner different from the one used with an ermine; he should not place mud before her—I mean the gifts and wooing of importunate lovers—because perhaps, and there is no perhaps about it, she does not have enough virtue and natural strength to overcome and surmount those obstacles by herself; it is necessary to remove them and place before her the purity of virtue and the beauty that lies in a good reputation.

In similar fashion, the chaste woman is like a mirror of clear, shining glass, liable to be clouded and darkened by any breath that touches it. One must treat the virtuous woman as one treats relics: adore them but not touch them. One must protect and esteem the chaste woman as one protects and esteems a beautiful garden filled with flowers and roses; its owner does not permit people to pass through and handle the flowers; it is enough that from a distance, through the iron bars of the fence, they enjoy its fragrance and beauty.

Finally, I want to recite for you some verses that have just come to mind; I heard them in a modern play, and I think they are relevant to what we are discussing. A prudent old man was advising the father of a young girl to shelter her, protect her, and keep her secluded, and among many other reasons, he mentioned these:

 

Woman is made of fragile glass;

but do not put her to the test

to see if she will break,

for that might come to pass.

She is too apt to shatter,

and wisdom is surely ended

if what can ne’er be mended

is put in the way of danger.

What I say to you is true,

and let us all agree:

wherever Danae may be,

showers of gold are there, too.206

Everything I have said so far, Anselmo, refers to you; now it is time for you to hear something that has to do with me, and if it takes a long time, forgive me, but it is demanded by the labyrinth into which you have walked and from which you wish me to free you. You consider me your friend, yet you wish to take my honor, which is counter to all friendship; not only that, but you want me to try to take yours. It is clear that you want to take mine, for when Camila sees me wooing her, as you are asking me to do, surely she will look upon me as a man without honor or worth because I am attempting and doing something so far removed from the obligations I have as the man I am, and as your friend. There is no doubt that you want me to take your honor, for when Camila sees me wooing her, she will think that I saw in her some looseness of behavior that gave me the audacity to reveal my evil desire, and thinking herself dishonored, her dishonor affects you, for you are part of her. For this reason people commonly say that the husband of an adulterous woman, even though he has no knowledge of wife’s adultery and has given her no reason to be what she should not be, and it was not in his power to prevent his misfortune for he was neither negligent nor careless, yet despite all this he is called and characterized by base names that revile him, and in a certain sense those who know of his wife’s wickedness look at him with scornful rather than compassionate eyes, even though responsibility for his difficulties lies not with him but with the desires of his unvirtuous wife.

But I want to tell you why it is reasonable and just for the husband of an immodest woman to be dishonored, even if he does not know about her lack of virtue, and is not responsible for it, and has not been a party to it or given her reason to be unchaste. And do not grow weary of listening to me; everything will redound to your benefit. When God created our first father in the Earthly Paradise, Holy Scripture says that God put Adam to sleep, and as he slept He took a rib out of his left side and from it He formed our mother Eve; when Adam awoke and saw her, he said: ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,’ and God said: ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.’ That was when the divine sacrament of marriage was established, with bonds so strong that death alone can undo them. And this miraculous sacrament is so strong and powerful that it makes one flesh of two different people, and in virtuous spouses it does even more, for although they have two souls, they have only one will. And from this it follows that since the flesh of the wife is one with the flesh of the husband, any stain that besmirches her, or any defect that appears in her, redounds to the flesh of the husband even if he has not given her, as I have said, any reason for her wickedness. Just as discomfort in the foot or any other member of the body is felt throughout the entire body because it is all one flesh, and the head feels the ankle’s pain although it has not caused it, so the husband participates in his wife’s dishonor because he is one with her. And since honors and dishonors in this world are all born of flesh and blood, and those of the un-chaste woman are of this kind, it is unavoidable that the husband is party to them and is considered dishonored even if he has no knowledge of them.

Therefore consider, Anselmo, the danger in which you place yourself by wanting to disturb the tranquility in which your virtuous wife lives; think of how, because of a futile and rash inquisitiveness, you wish to disturb the humors that now rest tranquilly in the bosom of your chaste wife; be aware that what you may gain is little, and what you may lose is so great that I will not even mention it because I lack the words to describe it. But if everything I have said is not enough to dissuade you from your evil purpose, then you can find another instrument for your dishonor and misfortune, for I do not intend to be that instrument, even if I lose your friendship, which is the greatest loss I can imagine.”

When he had said this, the virtuous and prudent Lotario fell silent, and Anselmo was left so perplexed and pensive that for some time he could not say a word, but at last he said:

“You have seen, Lotario my friend, how attentively I have listened to everything you wanted to say to me, and in your arguments, examples, and comparisons I have seen the great discernment you possess and the far reaches of your true friendship; I also see and confess that if I do not follow your way of thinking but pursue my own, I am fleeing the good and going after the bad. Assuming this, you must consider that I suffer now from the disease that afflicts some women, filling them with the desire to eat earth, plaster, charcoal, and other things that are even worse, and sickening to look at, let alone to eat; therefore it is necessary to use some artifice to cure me, and this could be done with ease if you simply start, even if indifferently and falsely, to woo Camila, who will not be so fragile that your first encounters will bring down her virtue; I will be content with this simple beginning, and you will have fulfilled what you owe to our friendship, not only by giving me back my life, but by persuading me not to lose my honor. You are obliged to do this for only one reason: being determined, as I am, to make this test a reality, you must not allow me to recount my madness to someone else who would endanger the honor that you insist on my not losing; yours not being as high as it should be, in Camila’s opinion, while you woo her, matters little or not at all, for in a very short time, when we see in her the integrity we desire, you will be able to tell her the truth of our scheme, and this will return your standing to where it was before. Since you risk so little and can make me so happy by taking that small risk, do not refuse to do it even if greater obstacles are placed before you; as I have said, if you simply begin, I shall consider the matter concluded.”

Seeing Anselmo’s resolute will, and not knowing what other examples to cite or arguments to present that would dissuade him, and hearing that he threatened to tell someone else about his wicked desire, and wanting to avoid an even greater evil, Lotario decided to agree and do what Anselmo asked; his purpose and intention was to guide the matter in such a way that Camila’s thoughts would not be disturbed and Anselmo would be satisfied, and therefore Lotario told Anselmo not to communicate his thought to anyone else and that he would undertake the enterprise and begin whenever his friend wished. Anselmo embraced him tenderly and lovingly and thanked him for his offer as if Lotario had done him a great favor; the two of them agreed that the plan would begin the following day; Anselmo would give Lotario time and opportunity to speak to Camila alone and also provide him with money and jewels to give and present to her. He advised Lotario to play music for her and write verses in her praise, and if he did not wish to take the trouble to do so, Anselmo would write them himself. Lotario agreed to everything, with intentions quite different from what Anselmo believed them to be.

And having come to this understanding, they went back to Anselmo’s house, where they found Camila waiting for her husband, troubled and concerned because he came home later than usual that day.

Lotario returned to his house and Anselmo remained in his, and he was as pleased as Lotario was thoughtful, not knowing what course to follow in order to succeed in that rash affair. But that night he thought of how to deceive Anselmo without offending Camila, and the next day he went to eat with his friend and was welcomed by Camila, who always received and treated him warmly, knowing the good opinion her husband had of him.

They finished eating, the table was cleared, and Anselmo asked Lotario to stay with Camila while he went out to tend to a pressing matter; he said he would be back in an hour and a half. Camila asked him not to leave, and Lotario offered to accompany him, but nothing could sway Anselmo; instead, he urged Lotario to wait until he returned because he had to discuss a matter of great importance with him. He also told Camila not to leave Lotario alone while he was out. In short, he knew so well how to feign the necessity or nonsensicality of his absence that no one could have realized it was mere pretense. Anselmo left, and Camila and Lotario remained alone at the table because the servants had gone to have their own meal. Lotario saw himself placed in precisely the dangerous position that his friend desired, facing an enemy who, with no more than her beauty, could conquer an entire squadron of armed knights: Lotario surely had good reason to fear her.

But what he did was to place his elbow on the arm of his chair and rest his cheek on his open hand, and begging Camila’s pardon for his rudeness, he said that he wanted to rest for a while until Anselmo returned. Camila responded that he would be more comfortable in the drawing room than in the chair, and she asked him to go in there to sleep. Lotario refused and dozed in the chair until the return of Anselmo, who found Camila in her bedroom and Lotario asleep and thought that since he had come home so late, they had already had the opportunity to talk and even to sleep; he was impatient for Lotario to awaken so that he could go out again with him and ask if he had been successful.

Everything happened as he wished: Lotario awoke, and they left the house together, and Anselmo asked what he wanted to know, and Lotario replied that he had not thought it a good idea to reveal his intentions completely the first time, and so he had done no more than praise Camila for her loveliness, saying that the sole topic of conversation throughout the city was her beauty and discretion; this had seemed to him a good start to winning her over, disposing her to listen to him with pleasure the next time by using the stratagem the devil uses when he wants to deceive someone who is wary and vigilant: he transforms himself into an angel of light, though he is an angel of darkness, and hides behind an appearance of virtue until finally he reveals his identity and achieves his purpose, unless the deception is discovered at the very start. This pleased Anselmo very much, and he said he would provide the same opportunity every day, because even if he did not leave the house, he would occupy himself with other matters, and Camila would not become aware of the ruse.

Many days went by, and though he did not say a word to Camila, Lotario told Anselmo that he was speaking to her but could never elicit from her the slightest interest in anything unchaste or the smallest shred of hope; on the contrary, he said she had warned him that if he did not rid himself of evil thoughts, she would have to tell her husband.

“Good,” said Anselmo. “So far Camila has resisted words; it is necessary to see how she resists actions: tomorrow I shall give you two thousand gold escudos to offer her, or even give to her, and another two thousand to buy jewels with which to tempt her; for women, no matter how chaste they are, and especially if they are beautiful, tend to be very fond of dressing well and looking elegant; if she resists this temptation, I will be satisfied and trouble you no more.”

Lotario responded that since he had begun it, he would see this undertaking through to its conclusion, although he knew that in the end he would be thwarted and defeated. On the following day he received the four thousand escudos, and with them four thousand perplexities, because he did not know what new lies he could tell, but finally he decided to tell Anselmo that Camila was as steadfast in her resistance to gifts and promises of gifts as she was to words, and there was no reason to expend any more effort because it was always a waste of time.

But Fate, which arranged matters differently, decreed that Anselmo, having left Lotario and Camila alone as he had done so many other times before, hid in a small antechamber and watched and listened to them through the keyhole, and he saw that in over half an hour Lotario did not speak a word to Camila and would not have spoken to her if he had been there for a century, and Anselmo realized that everything his friend had told him about Camila’s responses was a fiction and a lie. To see if this really was true, he walked out of the antechamber and called Lotario aside, then asked if there was any news and inquired about Camila’s mood. Lotario replied that he did not intend to take matters further because her responses had been so harsh and unpleasant; he did not have the heart to say anything else to her.

“Ah,” said Anselmo, “Lotario, Lotario, how badly you have fulfilled your duty to me and responded to the trust I put in you! I have been watching through the keyhole of the door to that room, and I have seen that you did not say a word to Camila, which leads me to think you have not said even the first word to her; if this is true, as it undoubtedly is, why have you deceived me, and why do you wish by your actions to take from me the only means I have found to satisfy my desire?”

Anselmo said no more; but what he had said was enough to leave Lotario disconcerted and confused, and taking it almost as a point of honor that he had been discovered in a lie, he swore to Anselmo that from then on he would dedicate himself to satisfying him and not lying to him, as he would see if he were curious enough to spy on him again; Anselmo would not even have to make that effort, however, because Lotario intended to put so much effort into satisfying him that it would eliminate all his suspicions. Anselmo believed him, and in order to give Lotario a more secure and less alarming opportunity, he decided to leave his house for a week and visit a friend who lived in a village not far from the city; Anselmo arranged with this friend to send for him very urgently so that Camila would think there was a reason for his departure.

Oh, Anselmo, how unfortunate and ill-advised! What are you doing? What are you plotting? What are you arranging? Consider that you are acting against yourself, plotting your own dishonor and arranging your own ruination. Camila is a virtuous wife; you possess her in peace and tranquility; no one assails your joy; 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 delight, the means by which she measures her will, adjusting it in all things to yours and to that of heaven. If, then, the mine of her honor, beauty, virtue, and modesty gives you, with no effort on your part, all the riches it has, and all that you could wish for, why do you want to dig into the earth and look for more veins of new and unseen treasure, putting yourself in danger of having it all collapse since, after all, it stands on the weak foundations of her frail nature? Remember that if a man seeks the impossible, the possible may justly be denied him; a poet said it better when he wrote:

I search for life in dread death,

in fearful disease for health,

in dark prison for liberty,

escape in a sealed room,

in a traitor, loyalty.

But my own fate from whom

I ne’er hope for the good

has with just heaven ruled:

if the impossible I demand,

for me the possible is banned.

The next day Anselmo left for the village, having told Camila that during the time he was away, Lotario would come to watch over the house and to eat with her, and that she should be sure to treat him as she would himself. Camila, an intelligent and honorable woman, was distressed by her husband’s orders and said he ought to be aware that when he was absent, it was not right for anyone to occupy his seat at the table, and if he was doing this because he had no confidence in her ability to manage his house, he should test her this time and learn through his own experience that she was capable of taking on even greater responsibilities. Anselmo replied that this was his pleasure, and her duty was merely to bow her head and obey. Camila said she would, although it was against her will.

Anselmo left, and on the following day Lotario came to the house, where he was received by Camila with an affectionate and virtuous welcome; she never put herself in a position where Lotario would see her alone; she was always accompanied by her servants, both male and female, especially a maid named Leonela, whom she loved dearly because they had grown up together in the house of Camila’s parents, and when she married she brought Leonela with her to Anselmo’s house. For the first three days Lotario said nothing to her, although he could have when the table was cleared and the servants left to eat their meal—by Camila’s orders, a hasty one. Leonela had also been instructed to eat before Camila did and to never leave her side, but the maid, who had her mind on other affairs more to her liking and needed that time and opportunity to tend to her own pleasures, did not always obey her mistress in this; instead, she left them alone, as if that had been her instructions. But Camila’s virtuous presence, the gravity of her countenance, and the modesty of her person were so great that they curbed Lotario’s tongue.

But the benefit derived from Camila’s many virtues imposing silence on Lotario in fact did harm to them both, because if his tongue was silent, his mind was active and had the opportunity to contemplate, one by one, all the exceptional qualities of virtue and beauty in Camila, which were enough to make a marble statue fall in love, let alone a human heart.

Lotario looked at her when he should have been speaking to her; he thought how worthy she was of being loved, and this thought gradually began an assault on the high regard he had for Anselmo; a thousand times over he wanted to leave the city and go to a place where Anselmo would never see him, and where Lotario would never see Camila, but the pleasure he found in looking at her had already become an impediment to his doing so. He contended and struggled with himself to resist and reject the joy he felt when he looked at her. When he was alone he blamed himself for his folly; he called himself a bad friend, even a bad Christian; he reasoned with himself, making comparisons between himself and Anselmo, and he always concluded by saying that Anselmo’s madness and trust had been greater than his own scant fidelity, and if this excused him before God as it did before men for what he intended to do, he would not fear punishment for his crime.

In short, the beauty and virtue of Camila, together with the opportunity that her ignorant husband had placed in his hands, overthrew Lotario’s loyalty, and without considering anything but what his longing moved him to do, after three days of Anselmo’s absence, days when he was in a constant struggle to resist his desires, Lotario began to compliment Camila with so much passion and such amorous words that Camila was stunned, and all she could do was stand and go to her bedroom without saying a word to him. But not even this brusque behavior could weaken Lotario’s hope, for hope is always born at the same time as love; instead, he held Camila in even higher esteem. Having seen in Lotario what she never imagined she would see, Camila did not know what to do, but thinking it would not be safe or proper to give him an opportunity to speak to her again, she resolved that very night to send a servant with a letter for Anselmo, which she did, and in it she wrote these words:

image

Licencia

Icon for the Public Domain license

This work (Don Quixote of la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes) is free of known copyright restrictions.

Compartir este libro