The Heptameron (Machen)/Novel 64

In the city of Valencia there lived a gentleman who, for the space of five or six years, had so loved a lady that neither the honour nor the conscience of the one nor the other was wounded; for his intent was to take her to wife, and he could well do so inasmuch as he was comely, rich, and of a good house. And when he declared his love to her he also told her he was minded to agree with her as touching their marriage, and to have the counsel of her kinsfolk on it. And they, being gathered together to this end, found the marriage a very reasonable one, provided that the girl was well inclined to it; but she, either thinking to make a better match, or willing to dissemble her love for him, raised some difficulties, so that the company departed, not without regret, that she had not been able to come to a conclusion, for they knew the parties were in every way well suited. But the gentleman sorrowed most of all, for he could have borne the mishap patiently if he had thought that it was the fault of the kinsfolk and not of herself; but knowing the truth, that was worse to him than death, without a word to his sweetheart or any other he betook him to his house. And after that he had taken order with his affairs he went to a solitary place, where he laboured to forget this love, and turned it all to love of Our Lord, whose due it was. And during this time he had no tidings of the lady nor her kin, wherefore he was resolved, since he had failed to gain the happiest life he could hope for, to take to himself the most austere and offensive that could be imagined. And with this mournful thought, that was fit to be called despair, he became ​a monk in a religious house of St. Francis, not far from the dwellings of several of his kinsmen, who, knowing his intent, did all that was in their power to obstruct the same, but it was so stiffly rooted in his heart that no endeavour could turn him from it. Yet, knowing the cause of his sickness, they thought to find the medicine for it, and came to her who was the reason of his sudden devotion. She, mightily astonished and vexed at this mischance, having intended by her refusal, only to make trial of his good will and not to lose it for ever, of which latter she was plainly in danger, sent him an epistle, the which, poorly translated, is somewhat as follows:

This letter, carried by a friend of hers, who made all the remonstrances that were in his power, was received and read of ​the gentleman friar with so sad a countenance and with such sighs and tears, that it seemed as if he would bum and drown the poor epistle. And to it he made no reply, but only said to the messenger that the mortification of his passion had cost him so dear that he had lost all desire of life and fear of death. Wherefore he required her who was the cause of it, since she had not been minded to appease his great love and desire, no more to torment him, but to be content with the evil she had done, for which there was no remedy but to seek out so harsh a life that by continual penance he might forget his grief. And he trusted, through fasts and disciplines, so to weaken his body that the expectation of death should be to him his sovereign comfort, but above all would have no tidings of her, since the mere thought of her name was purgatory to him. The gentleman returned with this sad reply and bore it to the lady, who grieved sorely at the hearing of it. But love, that will hope unto the last, made her conceive that if she could visit him, sight and speech would avail more than writing, so with her father and those near akin to her she went to the monastery where he was, having neglected nothing that might increase her beauty. For she thought that if he did but once see her and hear her voice, the fire of love that had so long dwelt in his heart would surely be rekindled and burn more ardently than before. So coming into the monastery towards the close of evensong, she sent for him to a chapel by the cloisters, and he, who knew not who desired to see him, went forth to the fiercest fight he had ever been in. And when she saw him thus sallow and lean-looking that he was scarcely to be known, but nevertheless full of no less admirable a grace than afore, love made her stretch forth her arms to embrace him, and pity for the estate he was in so enfeebled her heart that she fell to the ground in a swoon. But the poor monk, who had in him some share of brotherly love, raised her up and set her on a seat in the chapel. And though he stood as much in need of help himself, he feigned to be ignorant of her passion, fortifying his heart with the love of God against the occasions present to him, in such wise that by his face he might be judged not to perceive what was being done under his eyes. And when she was recovered from her swoon, turning those glorious and pitiful eyes upon him with such an aspect as would have softened a rock, she did all she ​was able to persuade him to come out from the place where he was. To this he replied very soberly and virtuously; but at last the heart of the poor monk was so melted by her tears, that he saw Love the cruel bowman, whose sorrows he had so long borne, holding his gilded arrow ready for the giving a new and a more deadly wound; and so fled from before Love and his sweetheart as one whose surety was only in flight. And when he was shut up in his cell, not willing to let her go without clearly resolving her, he wrote a few words in the Spanish tongue, which seem to me so goodly in the matter, that, lest I diminish at all the beauty of them, I will leave them untranslated. This message he sent her by a little novice, who found her still in the chapel, and so despairing that if it had been lawful she also would have turned friar. But when she saw the manner of the writing: Volvete don venesti, anima mia, que en las tristas vidas es la mia,^[1] she knew that all hope was lost, and determined to follow the counsel of him and her friends, and going home to lead a life as melancholic as that of her lover was austere.

"You see, ladies, how the gentleman avenged him on his cruel sweetheart, who, thinking to make trial of him, drove him to such despair that when she would have taken him back she could not." "I am sorry," said Nomerfide, " that he would not leave his habit to be betrothed to her, for I think it would have been a perfect marriage." "In good faith," said Simontault, "I account him very wise, for whosoever hath well considered the estate of marriage will find no less trouble in it than in the austerity of a monastical life; and he that was so enfeebled with fasts and abstinences feared to take this lifelong charge upon him." "Methinks," said Hircan, "she did wrong to tempt so weak a man to wed, for 'tis too much for the lustiest of us. But if she had offered love to him, with no dues except free-will offerings, the friar's cord would soon have been untied. And since to take him out of purgatory she promised him hell, I say he had good cause to refuse her and make her to feel some of that anguish she had given him." "In sooth," said Ennasuitte, "there be many that, upon thinking they can do better than their neighbours, do worse, nay rather ​what is most repugnant to their inclinations." "Verily," said Geburon, "though 'tis not altogether german to our discourse, you call to my mind the case of a woman who did the contrary to her desires, whence arose a great uproar in the church of St. John at Lyon." "I pray you," said Parlamente, "take my place and tell it us." "My tale," answered Geburon, "shall not be so long nor so pitiful as Parlamente's."