54.—Messer Bernardo then continued:
“Moreover common affectations are tedious, but they excite much laughter when they are beyond measure: like those we sometimes hear from certain mouths regarding greatness or courage or nobility; or sometimes from women, regarding beauty or fastidiousness. As was not long since the case with a lady who remained sad and abstracted at some great festival; and when asked what she was thinking about that should make her so gloomy, she replied: ‘I was thinking of a matter that troubles me greatly whenever it occurs to me, nor can I lift it from my heart; and this is, that on the universal Judgment Day, when all men’s naked bodies must rise and appear before the tribunal of Christ, I cannot endure the distress I feel at the thought that my body will have to be seen unclothed among the rest.’ Being extravagant, such affectations as these cause laughter rather than tedium.
“You all are familiar with those splendid lies so well composed that they move to laughter. A very excellent one was but lately told me by a friend of ours who never suffers us to be without them.”
55.—Then the Magnifico Giuliano said:
“Be that as it may, it cannot be more excellent or more ingenious than one which a fellow-Tuscan of ours, a merchant of Lucca, affirmed the other day as a positive fact.”
“Tell it to us,” added my lady Duchess.
The Magnifico Giuliano replied, laughing:
“This merchant, so he tells the story, once finding himself in Poland, decided to buy a quantity of sables with the intention of carrying them into Italy and making great profit thereby. And after much effort, being unable to enter Muscovy himself (by reason of the war that was then waging between the King of Poland and the Duke of Muscovy), he arranged with the help of some people of the country, that on an appointed day certain Muscovite merchants should come with their sables to the frontier of Poland, and he promised to be there in order to strike the bargain. Accordingly, proceeding with his companions towards Muscovy, the man of Lucca reached the Dnieper, which he found all frozen as hard as marble, and saw that the Muscovites (who on account of the war were themselves suspicious of the Poles) were already on the other bank, but approached no nearer than the width of the river. So, having recognized each other, the Muscovites after some signalling began to speak with a loud voice, and to ask the price that they wished for their sables; but such was the extreme cold that they were not heard, for before reaching the other bank (where the man of Lucca and his interpreters were) the words froze in the air, and remained there frozen and caught in such manner that the Poles, who knew the custom, set about making a great fire in the very middle of the river; because to their thinking that was the limit reached by the warm voice before it was stopped by freezing, and the river was quite solid enough to bear the fire easily. So, when this was done, the words (which had remained frozen for the space of an hour) in due course began to melt and to fall in a murmur, like snow from the mountains in May; and thus they were at once heard very well, although the men had already gone. But as the merchant thought that the words asked too high a price for the sables, he would not accept the offer and so returned without them.”[[210]]
56.—Thereupon everyone laughed, and messer Bernardo said:
“Of a truth the story I wish to tell you is not so ingenious; however it is a fine one, and runs as follows: