There was in the service of Charles, last Duke of Alençon, an old valet who had lost an eye, and who was married to a wife much younger than himself. Now, since his master and mistress liked him as well as any man of his condition that was in their service, he was not able to visit his wife as often as he could have wished. Owing to this she so far forgot her honour and conscience as to fall in love with a young man, and the affair being at last noised abroad, the husband heard of it. He could not believe it, however, on account of the many notable tokens of love that were shown him by his wife.
Nevertheless, he one day determined to put the matter to the test, and to take revenge, if he were able, on the woman who had put him to such shame. For this purpose he pretended to go away to a place a short distance off for the space of two or three days.
As soon as he was gone, his wife sent for her lover, but he had not been with her for half-an-hour when the husband arrived and knocked loudly at the door. The wife well knew who it was and told her lover, who was so greatly confounded that he would fain have been in his mother’s womb, and cursed both his mistress and the love that had brought him into such peril. However, she bade him fear nothing, for she would devise a means to get him away without harm or shame to him, and she told him to dress himself as quickly as he could. All this time the husband was knocking at the door and calling to his wife at the top of his voice; but she feigned not to recognise him, and cried out to the people of the house—
“Why do you not get up and silence those who are making such a clamour at the door? Is this an hour to come to the houses of honest folk? If my husband were here he would soon make them desist.”
On hearing his wife’s voice the husband called to her as loudly as he could—
“Wife, open the door. Are you going to keep me waiting here till morning?”
Then, when she saw that her lover was ready to set forth, she opened the door.
“Oh, husband!” she began, “how glad I am that you are come. I have just had a wonderful dream, and was so pleased that I never before knew such delight, for it seemed to me that you had recovered the sight of your eye.” (1)
1 This is taken from No. xvi. of the Cent Nouvelles
Nouvelles, in which the wife exclaims: “Verily, at the very
moment when you knocked, my lord, I was greatly occupied
with a dream about you.”—“And what was it, sweetheart?”
asks the husband.—“By my faith, my lord,” replies the wife,
“it really seemed to me that you were come back, that you
were speaking to me, and that you saw as clearly with one
eye as with the other.”—Ed.
Then, embracing and kissing him, she took him by the head and covering his good eye with one hand, she asked him—