Thogas’s wife, believing that her husband loved none but herself, was pleased that her serving-woman should amuse him, and laughed when in her presence he kissed the girl before her eyes, and with her knowledge.

Between the Pyrenees Mountains and the Alps, there dwelt a gentleman named Thogas, (1) who had a wife and children, with a very beautiful house, and so much wealth and pleasure at his hand, that there was reason he should live in contentment, had it not been that he was subject to great pain beneath the roots of the hair, in such wise that the doctors advised him to sleep no longer with his wife.  She, whose chief thought was for her husband’s life and health, readily consented, and caused her bed to be set in another corner of the room directly opposite her husband’s, so that they could neither of them put out their heads without seeing each other.

1 We are unable to trace any family named Thogas, which is probably a fictitious appellation.  Read backwards with the letter h omitted it forms Sagot, whilst if the syllables be transposed it suggests Guasto, a well-known Basque or Navarrese name.—­Ed.

This lady had two serving-women, and often when the lord and his lady were in bed, they would each take some diverting book to read, whilst the serving-women held candles, the younger, that is, for the gentleman, and the other for his wife.

The gentleman, finding that the maid was younger and handsomer than her mistress, took such great pleasure in observing her that he would break off his reading in order to converse with her.  His wife could hear this very plainly, but believing that her husband loved none but herself, she was well pleased that her servants should amuse him.

It happened one evening, however, when they had read longer than was their wont, that the lady looked towards her husband’s bed where was the young serving-maid holding the candle.  Of her she could see nothing but her back, and of her husband nothing at all excepting on the side of the chimney, which jutted out in front of his bed, and the white wall of which was bright with the light from the candle.  And upon this wall she could plainly see the shadows both of her husband and of her maid; whether they drew apart, or came near together or laughed, it was all as clear to her as though she had veritably beheld them.

The gentleman, using no precaution since he felt sure that his wife could not see them, kissed her maid, and on the first occasion his wife suffered this to pass without uttering a word.  But when she saw that the shadows frequently returned to this fellowship, she feared that there might be some reality beneath it all, and burst into a loud laugh, whereat the shadows were alarmed and separated.

The gentleman then asked his wife why she was laughing so heartily, so that he might have a share in her merriment.

“Husband,” she replied, “I am so foolish that I laugh at my own shadow.”