grievous these warders are wont to make themselves in their determination
to see everything: and moreover I met by the way several of my gossips
and friends that are ever wont to greet me, and ask me to drink, and
never a word said any of them to me, no, nor half a word either; but they
passed me by as men that saw me not. But at last, being come home, I was
met and seen by this devil of a woman, curses upon her, forasmuch as all
things, as you know, lose their virtue in the presence of a woman;
whereby I from being the most lucky am become the most luckless man in
Florence: and therefore I thrashed her as long as I could stir a hand,
nor know I wherefore I forbear to sluice her veins for her, cursed be the
hour that first I saw her, cursed be the hour that I brought her into the
house!" And so, kindling with fresh wrath, he was about to start up and
give her another thrashing; when Buffalmacco and Bruno, who had listened
to his story with an air of great surprise, and affirmed its truth again
and again, while they all but burst with suppressed laughter, seeing him
now frantic to renew his assault upon his wife, got up and withstood and
held him back, averring that the lady was in no wise to blame for what
had happened, but only he, who, witting that things lost their virtue in
the presence of women, had not bidden her keep aloof from him that day;
which precaution God had not suffered him to take, either because the
luck was not to be his, or because he was minded to cheat his comrades,
to whom he should have shewn the stone as soon as he found it. And so,
with many words they hardly prevailed upon him to forgive his injured
wife, and leaving him to rue the ill-luck that had filled his house with
stones, went their way.

(1) A sort of rissole.


NOVEL IV.