“Ah!” said the other, “very good advice, no doubt, but how can it be carried out?”
“I have found the means,” said the first. “I have always heard it said, and Ovid puts it in his book, The Remedy of Love, that to do—you know what—much and often, makes you forget or think little of the person with whom you are in love. I will tell you what we will do. We will take home with us a couple of nice young ‘cousins’ (*), and we will sleep with them, and commit every folly with them that our strength will permit, and then we will go and see our ladies, and the devil is in it if they do not then care for us.”
(*) Prostitutes. The word is doubtless derived from
coussin.
The other agreed, and the proposal was carried out, and each took home a nice wench. And after that they went to a great feast where their ladies were, and they flaunted in front of the damsels, chattering carelessly here and there, and seeming to say in a hundred thousand ways, “We do not care for you”, believing that, as they had devised, their mistresses would be displeased, and would try to make their lovers return to their allegiance.
But it happened quite otherwise, for if the youths appeared to think but little of the ladies, they on the other hand, showed openly that they cared nothing for the young men, which the latter perceived, and were much amazed at. The one said to his friend;
“Do you know what is the matter? Morbleu! our mistresses have done exactly what we have done. Do you not see how scornful they are? They carry themselves exactly as we do—and, believe me, for the very same reason. They have each chosen a paramour and indulged in folly to the utmost. Devil take the bitches! Let us leave them alone!”
“By my oath!” replied the other, “I believe it is as you say. I never expected to find them like this.”
So the two friends thought that their mistresses had done the same as they had done themselves, because the damsels took no more heed of them than they did of the damsels—which may not have been true, but was not difficult to believe.