Decamerone1--who had come to years of adolescence without ever having
beheld womanhood, so that the first sight of it in the streets of Florence
affected him so oddly that he vexed his sire with foolish questions and
still more foolish prayers.

1 In the Introduction to the Fourth Day.


So was it now with me. In all my eighteen years I had by my mother's
careful contriving never set eyes upon a woman of an age inferior to her
own. And--consider me foolish if you will but so it is--I do not think
that it had occurred to me that they existed, or else, if they did, that in
youth they differed materially from what in age I found them. Thus I had
come to look upon women as just feeble, timid creatures, over-prone to
gossip, tears, and lamentations, and good for very little that I could
perceive.

I had been unable to understand for what reason it was that San Luigi of
Gonzaga had from years of discretion never allowed his eyes to rest upon a
woman; nor could I see wherein lay the special merit attributed to this.
And certain passages in the Confessions of St. Augustine and in the early
life of St. Francis of Assisi bewildered me and left me puzzled.

But now, quite suddenly, it was as if revelation had come to me. It was as
if the Book of Life had at last been opened for me, and at a glance I had
read one of its dazzling pages. So that whether this brown peasant girl
was beautiful or not, beautiful she seemed to me with the radiant beauty
that is attributed to the angels of Paradise. Nor did I doubt that she
would be as holy, for to see in beauty a mark of divine favour is not
peculiar only to the ancient Greeks.