TALE LV.
A merchant’s widow, whilst carrying out her husband’s will,
interpreted its purport to the advantage of herself and her
children. (1)
In the town of Safagossa there lived a rich merchant, who, finding his death draw nigh, and himself no longer able to retain possession of his goods—-which he had perchance gathered together by evil means—thought that if he made a little present to God, he might thus after his death make part atonement for his sins, just as though God sold His pardon for money. Accordingly, when he had settled matters in respect of his house, he declared it to be his desire that a fine Spanish horse which he possessed should be sold for as much as it would bring, and the money obtained for it be distributed among the poor. And he begged his wife that she would in no wise fail to sell the horse as soon as he was dead, and distribute the money in the manner he had commanded.
1 Whether the incidents here related be true or not, it is
probable that this was a story told to Queen Margaret at the
time of her journey to Spain in 1525. It will have been
observed (ante, pp. 36 and 42) that both the previous tale
and this one are introduced into the Heptameron in a semi-
apologetic fashion, as though the Queen had not originally
intended that her work should include such short, slight
anecdotes. However, already at this stage—the fifty-fifth
only of the hundred tales which she proposed writing—she
probably found fewer materials at her disposal than she had
anticipated, and harked back to incidents of her earlier
years, which she had at first thought too trifling to
record. Still, slight as this story may be, it is not
without point. The example set by the wife of the Saragossa
merchant has been followed in modern times in more ways than
one.—Ed.
When the burial was over and the first tears were shed, the wife, who was no more of a fool than Spanish women are used to be, went to the servant who with herself had heard his master declare his desire, and said to him—
“Methinks I have lost enough in the person of a husband I loved so dearly, without afterwards losing his possessions. Yet would I not disobey his word, but rather better his intention; for the poor man, led astray by the greed of the priests, thought to make a great sacrifice to God in bestowing after his death a sum of money, not a crown of which, as you well know, he would have given in his lifetime to relieve even the sorest need. I have therefore bethought me that we will do what he commanded at his death, and in still better fashion than he himself would have done if had he lived a fortnight longer. But no living person must know aught of the matter.”
When she had received the servant’s promise to keep it secret, she said to him—