Having spoken, he covered my face with kisses, and bade me farewell, in a voice that shook with agony. But when he had said these words, I felt so woebegone and so entirely exhausted with weeping that I could hardly utter a syllable. Yet made I a mighty effort, and a few words forced themselves from my pallid lips:
“May the vows which my ears have heard, and which thy hand in mine has confirmed, be ratified by Jove in Heaven, as were the prayers of Teletusa by Isis, and may they be as irrevocable on earth as thou demandest and as I desire.” After which, I accompanied him to the door of my palace, wishing there to bid him a last adieu, when suddenly my tongue failed to do its office, and the light of day fled from my eyes.
Like a rose that had been cut level with the earth, and which loses its color when it feels the warmth of the solar rays, so did I fall, almost lifeless, into the arms of my faithful attendant; and not until the lapse of many moments was I recalled to this pitiless world by my devoted servant, who sprinkled cold water on my face and who exerted all her ingenuity to revive me. Then, hoping that he might still be at my door, like the maddened bull, which, when it has received the fatal stroke, wildly leaps into the air, so I, rising as if thunderstricken, and still almost blinded, rushed forward, and, with open arms, embraced my servant, believing that I had my lord within my arms, and, in a feeble voice, broken by sobs, I said:
“O soul of my soul, farewell!”
My servant spake not, witting my mistake; but I, when I had regained consciousness, and saw into what an error I had fallen, could hardly restrain myself from being beguiled into the same illusion afterward.
When I saw again myself in my chamber without my Panfilo, and not knowing how this could be so for such a length of time, asked my servant what had become of him, she, weeping, replied:
“It is now a long while since he tore himself from your arms, in spite of his tears and yours.”
To which I answered:
“Then, of a truth, is he gone?… “Yes,” replied the servant.
Thereupon, being anxious to learn more, I said: “How looked he when he left?”
“Heartbroken, in good sooth,” she answered. Never in my life have I seen man so utterly disconsolate.”
“What were his gestures, what his movements, what the words he uttered at the time of his departure?”
“When you lay almost lifeless in my arms, uttering incoherent words about I know not what, he, as soon as he saw you, took you from me and clasped you in his arms with ineffable tenderness. Dismayed, lest your trembling soul should have deserted its tenement, he laid his hand on your breast, and discovered by the wild throbbings of your heart that you lived.
Then he kissed you, as if every kiss were the last, and, returning, kissed you again and again. But when he saw that you were seemingly as soulless as marble, he dreaded that the greatest of all afflictions had befallen him, and, with heartrending sobs, he showered kisses on your face, saying: ‘O ye high gods, if there be any sin in my departure, let your vengeance fall on me, and not on this sweet lady!
Bring back to its dwelling-place the wandering soul, so that it may enjoy the last consolation of seeing me before I leave and of giving me the farewell kiss, wherewith both she and I may be comforted.’ But when he saw that you remained still unconscious, although his agitation was so extreme that he hardly knew what he was doing, he took you in his arms and placed you gently on the couch. Then, as the waves of the sea now retreat and now return to the shore, driven hither and thither by the resistless force of the winds, so he retreated, and then returned, and returned and retreated again and again, but always withdrawing slowly from the threshold of your chamber.
Sometimes he looked up to the threatening skies, which warned him not to delay his going; then he turned and gazed upon you, repeatedly calling you by name and kissing your face again and again. But, after he had done so frequently, seeing that he could stay no longer with you, he embraced you and said: ‘O sweetest of all women! Sole hope of my broken heart! I must leave thee for a time, although I know that, by doing so, I endanger thy life! Oh, may God relieve thee from the pain thou dost now suffer, and grant that we may see each other again with as much joy as we now feel sorrow at this bitter parting.’
And, while he was speaking these words, his tears so often ended in convulsive sobs that I was alarmed lest he should be heard, not only by our own people, but by our neighbors. But, feeling that he must depart, he again said farewell, weeping the while more bitterly than ever.
And, as if drawn thither by force, he would sometimes plant his foot on the threshold of your house, and anon rush wildly forth from it. And when he had gone a few paces, he would stop, and it seemed as if he could hardly go further; for at every step he would look back, apparently hoping that you had recovered and that I would call him back to look upon you again.”
Having said which, my servant held her peace. And, O ladies, what, think you, must have been my state after the departure of my lover, whose absence was to cause me so many bitter pangs!
Chapter III
Wherein are set forth the thoughts and deeds of this lady during the time at the end whereof she expected her lover to return.
In doleful plight did I remain after the departure of my Panfilo, and, day after day, the tears I shed, because of his absence, were very bitter. Nor did other words come to my lips—words never uttered withal—than these: “O my Panfilo! can it be that thou hast forsaken me?” Yet, amid all my anguish, the recollection of that name whereby he had taught me to address him, afforded me a little consolation. There was no part of my chamber which escaped the glance of my insatiate eyes: “Here,”
I would say to myself, “my Panfilo was wont to sit; here he used to recline; here he vowed a speedy return to me; here I kissed him.” In short, there was not a spot in the room that was not dear to me. Sometimes I feigned to myself that he was coming to see me once more, having changed his purpose and turned back. Then, as if he were really come, I would suddenly gaze at the entrance, so cheated by my fancy that, because he was not there, I frequently fell into a rage, as if, though so near me, he had of a truth forsaken and deceived me.
As soon as the dull misery caused by his late departure began to be somewhat alleviated by the interposition of time, certain ideas of a more serious nature made their way into my mind, and, once they had entered, they asserted the lawfulness of their presence by much plausible reasoning. So, happening to be alone in my chamber, not long afterward, I began arguing with myself in the following fashion: “Behold thy lover has now gone from thy side, and thou, wretched woman that thou art, wert not only unable to bid him farewell, but even to return the kisses he bestowed on thy unconscious lips, or cast thine eyes upon him when, for the last time, he crossed the threshold of thy home; all which, should aught of ill befall him, he may regard as the consequence of a fatal augury portentously forecast by thy silence, and on thee may lay the blame thereof.”
At first, this thought bore very heavily on my soul: but at length, it made way for another reflection, and, after deeply reconsidering the matter, I said to myself : “No, no blame can fall upon me by reason of this, inasmuch as he, being a person of great wisdom, will, on the contrary, deem the things that occurred to be of happy augury rather, saying: ‘She did not bid me the sort of adieu that one is wont to address to those who purpose to be absent for a long period, or haply not to return at all.
But, by keeping silent, she showed she regarded my absence from her as being for such an exceedingly brief period as scarcely to be considered a separation. After I had turned this thought over and over in my mind, and gained therefrom a little comfort, I dismissed it entirely, and fixed my attention on various new ideas. Sometimes, when solitary and sad in my chamber, all my thoughts dwelling on him, I strode to and fro, and, fetching many a sigh, murmured: “Would that my Panfilo were here!”
In this way, torn now here, now there, by conflicting emotions, did I pass several days, yet ever hoping for his safe arrival in his native city, and of this I was afterward made certain by a letter from him, which yielded me the greatest delight on many accounts, and made known to me that he was inflamed with a love for me more ardent than ever; furthermore, the most solemn
