Petrarca. No; do you want her?
Boccaccio. Not a bit. That Frate Biagio has heightened my pulse when I could not lower it again. The very devil is that Frate for heightening pulses. And with him I shall now make merry ... God willing ... in God’s good time ... should it be His divine will to restore me! which I think He has begun to do miraculously. I seem to be within a frog’s leap of well again; and we will presently have some rare fun in my Tale of the Frate.
Petrarca. Do not openly name him.
Boccaccio. He shall recognize himself by one single expression. He said to me, when I was at the worst:
‘Ser Giovanni! it would not be much amiss (with permission!) if you begin to think (at any spare time), just a morsel, of eternity.’
‘Ah! Fra Biagio!’ answered I, contritely, ‘I never heard a sermon of yours but I thought of it seriously and uneasily, long before the discourse was over.’
‘So must all,’ replied he, ‘and yet few have the grace to own it.’
Now mind, Francesco! if it should please the Lord to call me unto Him, I say, The Nun and Fra Biagio will be found, after my decease, in the closet cut out of the wall, behind yon Saint Zacharias in blue and yellow.
Well done! well done! Francesco. I never heard any man repeat his prayers so fast and fluently. Why! how many (at a guess) have you repeated? Such is the power of friendship, and such the habit of religion! They have done me good: I feel myself stronger already. To-morrow I think I shall be able, by leaning on that stout maple stick in the corner, to walk half over my podere.
Have you done? have you done?