Christ, without straightway inspiring the men that saw her with an
ardent longing to hold her pressed to their bosom.

Now it came about that Signora Eletta married, when about the age of
fifteen, Messer Antonio Torlota, an Advocate. He was a very learned
man, of good repute, and wealthy, but already far advanced in years, and
so heavy and misshapen, that seeing him carrying his papers in a great
leathern bag, you could scarcely tell which bag it was dragging about
the other.

It was pitiful to think how, as the result of the holy sacrament of
wedlock, which is instituted among men for their glory and eternal
salvation, the fairest lady of Verona was bedded with so old a man, all
ruinate in health and vigour. And wise folk saw with more pain than
wonder that, profiting by the freedom allowed her by her husband, busied
all night long as he was solving the problems of justice and injustice,
Messer Torlota's young wife welcomed to her bed the handsomest and most
proper cavaliers of the city. But the pleasure she took therein came
from herself, not from them at all. It was her own self she loved, and
not her lovers. All her enjoyment was of the loveliness of her own
proper flesh, and of nothing else. Herself was her own desire and
delight, and her own fond concupiscence. Whereby, methinks, the sin of
carnal indulgence was, in her case, enormously aggravated.

For, albeit, this sin must ever divide us from God--a sufficient sign of
its gravity--yet is it true to say that carnal offenders are regarded by
the Sovereign Judge, both in this world and the next, with less
indignation than are covetous men, traitors, murderers, and wicked men
who have made traffic of holy things. And the reason of this is that the
naughty desires sensualists entertain, being directed towards others