La mia speranza al suo termine viene...."
All this seems to have come to pass at Baia, perhaps, as Boccaccio seems himself to suggest, one day in the woods of Monte Miseno whither they were gone with a gay company holding festa there in the golden spring weather.[171] And there were other days too: long delicious noons in the woods, still evenings by the seashore, where, though not alone, he might talk freely to her, by chance or strategy, or in a low voice whisper his latest verses beating with her heart. Giovanni, we may be sure, was no mean strategist; he was capable of playing his part in the game of hide-and-seek with the world.[172] He seems eagerly to have sought the friendship of her husband and of her relations and Fiammetta herself tells us in the romance that bears her name that filled "non solamente dello amoroso ardore, ma ancora di cautela perfetta il vidi pieno; il che sommamente mi fu a grado. Esso, con intera considerazione vago di servare il mio onore e adempiere, quando i luoghi e li tempi il concedessero, li suoi desii credo non senza gravissima pena, usando molte arti, s' ingegnò d' aver la familiarità di qualunque mi era parente, ed ultimamente del mio marito: la quale non solamente ebbe, ma ancora con tanta grazia la possedette, che a niuno niuna cosa era a grado, se non tanto quanto con lui la comunicava...."[173]
Well, the one hundred and thirty-five days had begun.[174] There were difficulties still to be overcome, however, before he won that for which, as he says, he had always begged. Fiammetta, like a very woman, denied it him over and over again, though very willingly she would have given it to him. Expert as he had become in a woman's heart—in this woman's heart at least—Giovanni guessed all this and knew besides that she could not give him what he desired unless he took it with a show at least of violence. Such, even to-day, are Italian manners.[175] He awaited the opportunity. It seems to have come during the absence of the husband in Capua.[176] Screwing his courage to the sticking-point, he resolved to go to her chamber, and to this end persuaded or bribed her maid to help him.[177]
It was in the early days of November probably, days so pensive in that beautiful southern country, that it befell even as he had planned. Led by the maid into Fiammetta's chamber, he hid himself behind the curtains of the great marital bed. Presently she came in with the maid, who undressed her and put her to bed, and left her, half laughing, half in tears. Again he waited, and when at last, desperate with anxiety and hope, he dared to come out of his hiding, she was sleeping as quietly as a child. For a time he looked at her, then trembling and scarce daring to breathe the while, he crept into the great bed beside her, in verity as though he were her newly wedded husband. Then softly he kissed her, sleeping still, and drawing aside the curtain that hid the light,[178] discovered to his amorous eyes "il delicato petto, e con desiderosa mano toccava le ritonde mammelle, bacciandola molte volte," and already held her in his arms when she awakened. She opened her mouth to cry for help, he closed it with kisses; she strove to get out of bed, but he held her firm, bidding her have no fear. She was defeated, of course, but that her yielding might not seem too easy she reproached him[179] in a trembling voice—trembling with fear and pleasure—for the violence with which he had stolen what she had always denied him; adding that all was quite useless as she did not wish it.
Then Giovanni, putting all to the proof, drew a dagger from his belt, and retiring to a corner of the bed, in a low and distressed voice said—we find the words in the Ameto—"I come not, O lady, to defile the chastity of thy bed, but as an ardent lover to obtain relief for my burning desires; thou alone canst assuage them, or tell me to die: surely I will only leave thee satisfied or dead, not that I seek to gratify my passion by violence or to compel any to raise cruel hands against me; but if thou art deaf to my entreaties with my dagger I shall pierce my heart."
To kill himself—there. O no, Giovanni! Certainly she did not want that. What then? Well, not a dead man in her room, at any rate, for all the world to talk about.[180] Yes, she was paid in her own coin. She was conquered; her silence gave consent. "O no, Giovanni!"
"Donna mia," he whispered, "I came thus because it was pleasing to the gods...."[181]
"Thou lovest me so?" she answered. "And when then, and how, and why ... and why?" So he told her all over again from the beginning, and she, yielding little by little, seemed doubtful even yet. Then he asked again, "Che farò O Donna? Passerà il freddo ferro il solecito petto o lieto sarà dal tuo riscaldato?" At this renewed menace the poor lady, without more ado, reached for the iron and flung it away. Then he, putting his arms about her and kissing her furiously, whispered: "Lady, the gods, my passion, and thy beauty, have wounded my soul, and thus as was already told thee in dreams I shall for ever be thine: I do not think I need implore thee to be mine, but if necessary I pray thee now once for all...."
That night was but the first of a long series, as we may suppose. "Oh," says Fiammetta, in the romance which bears her name, "how he loved my room and with what joy it saw him arrive. He held it in greater reverence than any church (temple). Ah me, what pleasant kisses! What loving embraces! How many nights passed as though they had been bright days in sweet converse without sleep! How many delights, dear to every lover, have we enjoyed there in those happy days."[182]
So autumn passed into winter and the long nights grew short, and all the world was at the spring; and for them too it was the golden age—so long ago. Well, do we not know how they spent their lives? It was ever Giovanni's way to kiss and tell. Has he not spoken of the festas and the jousts, and the rare encounters that in Naples greeted Primavera?[183] We see him with Fiammetta at the Courts of Love, in the deep shade of the gardens, in the joyful fields,[184] on the seashore at Baia,[185] and at the Bagno beside the lake of Avernus,[186] while we may catch a glimpse of them too at a wedding feast.[187] So passed what proved to be the one happy year of their love, and perhaps the happiest of Giovanni's life.