In Tales We Tell Ourselves, Carlo Geblér has reimagined and re-invented the original lockdown fiction: Boccaccio's Decameron, which was written when the plague swept medieval Florence.
In the original text, ten men and women isolate themselves in a tower and to pass the time tell each other 100 stories. Geblér has selected 28 tales and given them a contemporary text. This extract is from one of the later stories and
Is a tale of domestic intrigue and trickery.
A Beating
Lodovico, who works for Egano, confesses to Egano’s wife, Madonna Beatrice, that he loves her. Madonna Beatrice is delighted by this. She sends Egano, dressed in one of her gowns, to lurk in the garden and takes Ludovico into her bed. Following love-making, Madonna Beatrice then dispatches Ludovico to the garden where, she says, he is to beat Egano, though when he does so he is to take care to make Egano believe that he thinks he is beating her rather than her husband.
A poor Florentine gentleman went into trade and prospered. He had one son, Lodovico, and as he didn’t want his son in trade like he had been, he sent Ludovico to the court of the king in Paris in order to mingle with the nobility and acquire the finesse and polish of a lord. Whilst in service Lodovico associated with other young high-born fellows and one day he heard one saying that of all the women in the world the most beautiful was the wife of Egano de’ Galluzzi of Bologna. Her name was Madonna Beatrice.
After he heard this Lodovico quit Paris and went to Bologna. He wanted to see Madonna Beatrice with his own eyes. When he managed to do this, he was immediately impressed - she really was beautiful - and besotted, and he wanted her. He disguised himself as a working man and applied to Egano de’ Galluzzi for work. His application was a success. He was brought into the household. If he was ever to make Madonna Beatrice love him he knew there were two things he must do. He must hide his feelings and he must make himself indispensable. So that’s exactly what he did, and, in that way, he became, in Egano’s eyes, the best and most trusted servant Egano had ever had ...
One day, Egano went away for a day’s hawking. Lodovico, who was left behind, decided that finally the time had come when he would make his feelings known and he knew just how he would do it too. He suggested to Madonna Beatrice that they play a game of chess. She agreed. Then, without her realising, he contrived to lose and, having lost, he began to sigh heavily.
'Don’t you like losing to me?’ said Madonna Beatrice.
‘I’m not sighing because I lost,’ said Lodovico, ‘I’m sighing about something else.’
Hearing this, Madonna Beatrice had to know what the ‘something else’ was and Lodovico then let her prise the truth out of him; that he was in love with her. Madonna Beatrice was as impressed by this as he was with her beauty.
‘Tonight,’ she said, ‘I will leave my bedroom door open. Enter at midnight. Come to my side of the bed. You know what side I sleep on? Wake me with a shake.’
‘What about ...?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about Egano,’ said Madonna Beatrice. ‘You just come at midnight.’
That evening Egano came home from hawking. He ate. He was tired. He went to bed. Madonna Beatrice followed him. She undressed, got in beside Egano and snuffed out the candle.
At midnight Lodovico crept through the open door of Madonna Beatrice’s bedroom. He could just about make out the bed and the shapes of Madonna Beatrice and her husband. He slipped quietly across and put his hand on her shoulder as she had told him to do. She took his hand and held it hard.
‘Egano,’ Lodovico heard her say. Suspecting a trap, he tried to pull away, but Madonna Lodovico wouldn’t let go. ‘What?’ said Egano, half-asleep.
‘Who’s your best servant?’
Again, Lodovico tried to pull away but she had him. ‘Lodovico,’ said Egano. He was awake now. Lodovico could tell from the sound of his voice.
‘While you were hawking,’ said Madonna Beatrice, ‘do you know what your best servant did? Asked me to meet him after midnight in the garden at the foot of our pine tree, that’s what he did.’
Egano was appalled.
‘Put on one of my gowns and a veil and go down and wait and when he shows up you’ll see the real Lodovico.’
‘I will,’ said Egano.
He dressed in the dark in one of his wife’s loosest robes and a veil, not seeing Lodovico crouched on his wife’s side of the bed as he did, and he went out. Lodovico, much relieved, got in with Madonna Beatrice ... They made love and then, when they were finished, Madonna Beatrice said, ‘Get up and get a stick and go down to the garden. When you "discover" me there by the pine tree you will beat me for having agreed to meet you at your request, which you instigated of course as a test of my fidelity to Egano.’
Lodovico dressed, found a willow stick by the front door, and went out to the garden.
‘Ha, Beatrice!’ he shouted at the figure under the tree. ‘You did come? Well now I’m going to teach you a lesson you won’t forget.’
‘Lodovico,’ said Egano. ‘It’s me.’
Lodovico raised the stick and broke into a slow run.
Egano realised what was happening. His servant didn’t realise he was who he was. Lodovico thought he was Madonna Beatrice. Well, there was only one thing to do. He lifted his skirts, turned and started to run. Lodovico caught up and landed a savage blow across his shoulder and then a second and a third. Then Lodovico stopped and said, ‘That’s what happens to faithless wives who arrange to meet their husband’s servants in the garden after midnight. Tonight, I’ll let you off with a beating but next time you try this on I’ll tell Egano and he’ll throw you out ...’
At that moment Egano reached a side door. He opened it, slipped in the house and closed the door behind him. Then he hurried up into his bedroom.
‘What happened?’ said Madonna Beatrice, hearing Egano come in.
‘He beat me,’ said Egano.
‘Why?’
‘He didn’t actually mean it when he suggested you meet him in the garden earlier.’
‘Didn’t he?’ said Madonna Beatrice.
‘No. He was testing you.’
‘Oh,’ said Madonna Beatrice quickly and brightly, ‘I got it wrong. Now I understand.’ She clapped her hands in the darkness. ‘What a cunning fellow. He wanted to see what sort of a wife I was. If I’d show up or not, and as I did, he beat me, but it wasn’t me, it was you dressed in one of my gowns. Ha! What a man. What a marvelous man. You’ll never met a more faithful servant than that Lodovico.’
Egano was mollified by Madonna Beatrice’s impeccable logic. He went to sleep and, in the morning, woke sore but happy. Yes, he thought, listening to Madonna Beatrice breathing beside him, he had the best wife and the best servant in Christendom. Lodovico stayed with Egano many years and his relationship with Madonna Beatrice continued throughout that time and throughout that time Egano never saw anything that made him change his mind.
