Now Ghirotto, though he was only a peasant, was shrewd enough, and at once grasped the meaning of Messer Simplicio’s watchword, which perturbed him mightily; for it struck him that this word meant more than mere trifling.[[24]] So he said to his wife, ‘If the next time you go to the well he should ask of you, “When shall I come?” you must answer him, “This evening.” The rest you can leave to me.’
The next day, when Giliola went according to her wont to draw water at the well, she found there Messer Simplicio, who was waiting for her with ardent longing, and greeted him with her accustomed ‘Good morning, Signor.’ To this the gallant answered ‘Ticco,’ and she followed suit with ‘Tacco.’ Then he added, ‘When shall I come?’ to which she replied, ‘This evening.’ ‘Let it be so then,’ he said. And when Giliola returned to her house she said to her husband, ‘I have done everything as you directed.’ ‘What did he answer?’ said Ghirotto. ‘He said he would come this evening,’ his wife replied.
Now Ghirotto, who by this time had got a bellyful of something else besides vermicelli and maccaroni, spake thus to his wife: ‘Giliola, let us go now and measure a dozen sacks of oats, for I will make believe that I am going to the mill, and when Messer Simplicio shall come, you must make him welcome and give him honourable reception. But before this, have ready an empty sack beside those which will be full of oats, and as soon as you hear me come into the house make him hide himself in the sack thus prepared, and leave the rest to me.’ ‘But,’ said Giliola, ‘we have not in the house enough sacks to carry out the plan you propose.’ ‘Then send our neighbour Cia,’ said the husband, ‘to Messer Simplicio to beg him to lend us two, and she can also let it be known that I have business at the mill this evening.’ And all these directions were diligently carried out. Messer Simplicio, who had given good heed to Giliola’s words, and had marked, moreover, that she had sent to borrow two of his sacks, believed of a truth that the husband would be going to the mill in the evening, and found himself at the highest pitch of felicity and the happiest man in the world, fancying the while that Giliola was as hotly inflamed with love for him as he was for her; but the poor wight had no inkling of the conspiracy which was being hatched for his undoing, otherwise he would assuredly have gone to work with greater caution than he used.
Messer Simplicio had in his poultry yard good store of capons, and he took two of the best of these and sent them by his body-servant to Giliola, enjoining her to let them be ready cooked by the time when he should be with her according to their agreement. And when night had come he stole secretly out and betook himself to Ghirotto’s house, where Giliola gave him a most gracious reception. But when he saw the oat-sacks standing there he was somewhat surprised, for he expected that the husband would have taken them to the mill; so he said to Giliola, ‘Where is Ghirotto? I thought he had gone to the mill, but I see the sacks are still here; so I hardly know what to think.’ Then Giliola replied, ‘Do not murmur, Messer Simplicio, or have any fear. Everything will go well. You must know that, just at vesper-time, my husband’s brother-in-law came to the house and brought word that his sister was lying gravely ill of a persistent fever, and was not like to see another day. Wherefore he mounted his horse and rode away to see her before she dies.’ Messer Simplicio, who was indeed as simple as his name imports, took all this for the truth and said no more.
Whilst Giliola was busy cooking the capons and getting ready the table, lo and behold! Ghirotto her husband appeared in the courtyard, and Giliola, as soon as she saw him, feigned to be grief-stricken and terrified, and cried out, ‘Woe to us, wretches that we are! We are as good as dead, both of us;’ and without a moment’s hesitation she ordered Messer Simplicio to get into the empty sack which was lying there; and when he had got in—and he was mightily unwilling to enter it—she set the sack with Messer Simplicio inside it behind the others which were full of oats, and waited till her husband should come in. And when Ghirotto entered and saw the table duly set and the capons cooking in the pot, he said to his wife: ‘What is the meaning of this sumptuous supper which you have prepared for me?’ and Giliola made answer: ‘I thought that you must needs come back weary and worn out at midnight, and, in order that you might fortify and refresh yourself somewhat after the fatigues you so constantly have to undergo, I wished to let you have something succulent for your meal.’ ‘By my faith,’ said Ghirotto, ‘you have done well, for I am somewhat sick and can hardly wait to take my supper before I go to bed,’ and moreover I want to be astir in good time to-morrow morning to go to the mill. But before we sit down to supper I want to see whether the sacks we got ready for the mill are all in order and of just weight.’ And with these words he went up to the sacks and began to count them, and, finding there were thirteen, he feigned to have made a miscount of them, and began to count them over again, and still he found there were thirteen of them; so he said to his wife: ‘Giliola, what is the meaning of this? How is it that I find here thirteen sacks while we only got ready twelve? Where does the odd one come from?’ And Giliola answered: ‘Yes, of a certainty, when we put the oats into the sacks there were only twelve, and how this one comes to be here I cannot tell.’
Inside the sack, meantime, Messer Simplicio, who knew well enough that there were thirteen sacks on account of his being there, kept silent as a mouse and went on muttering paternosters beneath his breath, at the same time cursing Giliola, and his passion for her, and his own folly in having put faith in her. If he could have cleared himself from his present trouble by flight, he would have readily taken to his heels, for he feared the shame that might arise thereanent, rather than the loss. But Ghirotto, who knew well enough what was inside the sack, took hold of it and dragged it outside the door, which he had by design left open, in order that the poor wretch inside the sack, after he should have been well drubbed, might get out of the sack and have free field to go whithersoever he listed. Then Ghirotto, having caught up a knotty stick which he had duly prepared for the purpose, began to belabour him so soundly that there was not a square inch of his carcass which was not thrashed and beaten; indeed, a little more would have made an end of Messer Simplicio. And if it had not happened that the wife, moved by pity or by fear lest her husband should have the sin of murder on his soul, wrenched the cudgel out of Ghirotto’s hand, homicide might well have been the issue.
At last, when Ghirotto had given over his work and had gone away, Messer Simplicio slunk out of his sack, and, aching from head to foot, made his way home, half dreading the while that Ghirotto with his stick was close behind him; and in the meantime Ghirotto and his wife, after eating a good supper at Messer Simplicio’s cost, went to bed. And after a few days had passed, Giliola, when she went to the well, saw Simplicio, who was walking up and down the terrace in his garden, and with a merry glance greeted him, saying, ‘Ticco, Messer Simplicio;’ but he, who still felt the pain of the bruises he had gotten on account of this word, only replied:
Neither for your good morning, nor for your tic nor your tac,
Will you catch me again, my lady, inside your sack.
When Giliola heard this she was struck silent, and went back to her house with her face red for shame, and Messer Simplicio, after the sorry usage he had received, changed his humour and gave the fullest and most loving service to his own wife, whom he had hitherto disliked, keeping his eyes and his hands off other men’s goods, so that he might not again be treated to a like experience.