these, all of which I do not care to relate, for besides that the
report thereof would be too tedious, I ween full well that you, like me,
also have been, or are, in love, and know what changes take place in
those who are in such sad case.

He was a most wary and circumspect youth, whereunto my experience was
able to bear witness frequently. Going very rarely, and always in the
most decorous manner, to the places where I happened to be, he used to
observe me, but ever with a cautious eye, so that it seemed as if he had
planned as well as I to hide the tender flames that glowed in the
breasts of both. Certainly, if I denied that love, although it had
clutched every corner of my heart and taken violent possession of every
recess of my soul, grew even more intense whenever it happened that my
eyes encountered his, I should deny the truth; he added further fuel to
the fires that consumed me, and rekindled such as might be expiring, if,
mayhap, there were any such. But the beginning of all this was by no
means so cheerful as the ending was joyless, as soon as I was deprived
of the sight of this, my beloved, inasmuch as the eyes, being thus
robbed of their delight, gave woful occasion of lamentation to the
heart, the sighs whereof grew greater in quality as well as in quantity,
and desire, as if seizing my every feeling, took me away from myself,
and, as if I were not where I was, I frequently gave him who saw me
cause for amazement by affording numberless pretexts for such
happenings, being taught by love itself. In addition to this, the quiet
of the night and the thoughts on which my fancy fed continuously, by
taking me out of myself, sometimes moved me to actions more frantic than
passionate and to the employment of unusual words.

But it happened that while my excess of ornaments, heartfelt sighs, lost
rest, strange actions, frantic movements, and other effects of my recent