h:--"What
means this, Arriguccio? This accords not with what thou gavest us to
understand thou hadst done; nor know we how thou wilt prove the residue."

Arriguccio was lost, as it were, in a dream, and yet he would fain have
spoken; but, seeing that what he had thought to prove was otherwise, he
essayed no reply. So the lady turning to her brothers:--"I see," quoth
she, "what he would have: he will not be satisfied unless I do what I
never would otherwise have done, to wit, give you to know what a pitiful
caitiff he is; as now I shall not fail to do. I make no manner of doubt
that, as he has said, even so it befell, and so he did. How, you shall
hear. This worthy man, to whom, worse luck! you gave me to wife, a
merchant, as he calls himself, and as such would fain have credit, and
who ought to be more temperate than a religious, and more continent than
a girl, lets scarce an evening pass but he goes a boozing in the taverns,
and consorting with this or the other woman of the town; and 'tis for me
to await his return until midnight or sometimes until matins, even as you
now find me. I doubt not that, being thoroughly well drunk, he got him to
bed with one of these wantons, and, awaking, found the pack-thread on her
foot, and afterwards did actually perform all these brave exploits of
which he speaks, and in the end came back to her, and beat her, and cut
her hair off, and being not yet quite recovered from his debauch,
believed, and, I doubt not, still believes, that 'twas I that he thus
treated; and if you will but scan his face closely, you will see that he
is still half drunk. But, whatever he may have said about me, I would
have you account it as nothing more than the disordered speech of a tipsy
man; and forgive him as I do." Whereupon the lady's mother raised no
small outcry, saying:--"By the Holy Rood, my daughter, this may not be! A
daughter, such as thou, to be mated with one so unworthy of thee! The
pestilent, insensate cur should be slain on the spot! A pretty state of
things, indeed! Why, he might have picked thee up from the gutter! Now
foul fall him! but thou shalt no more be vexed with the tedious drivel of
a petty dealer in ass's dung, some blackguard, belike, that came hither
from the country because he was dismissed the service of some petty
squire, clad in romagnole, with belfry-breeches, and a pen in his arse,
and for that he has a few pence, must needs have a gentleman's daughter
and a fine lady to w