“Where have you been?”

“I went to my old jeweler’s to redeem my ring, that you might have a souvenir of me; here it is.”

“Pauline!  Pauline! a little love would have been much more precious to me than this beautiful ring.”

“You shall have both.  Till the time of my departure, which will come only too soon, we will live together like man and wife; and to-night shall be our wedding night, and the bed the table for the feast.”

“What sweet news you give me, Pauline!  I cannot believe it till my happiness is actually accomplished.”

“You may doubt, if you like; but let it be a slight doubt, or else you will do me wrong.  I am tired of living with you as a lover and only making you wretched, and the moment I saw you on horseback I determined to belong to you.  Consequently I went to redeem the ring directly you left, and I do not intend to leave you until I receive the fatal message from Lisbon.  I have dreaded its arrival every day for the last week.”

“May the messenger that brings it be robbed on the way.”

“No such luck, I am afraid.”

As Pauline was standing, I asked her to come to my arms, for I longed to give her some palpable signs of my love.

“No, dearest, one can love and yet be wise; the door is open.”

She got down Ariosto and began to read to me the adventure of Ricciardetto with Fiordespina, an episode which gives its beauty to the twenty-ninth canto of that beautiful poem which I knew by heart.  She imagined that she was the princess, and I Ricciardetto.  She liked to fancy,

   ’Che il ciel L’abbia concesso,
   Bradamante cangiata in miglior sesso.’

When she came to the lines;

   ’Le belle braccia al collo indi mi getta,
   E dolcemente stringe, a baccia in bocca: 
   Tu puoi pensar se allora la saetta
   Dirizza Amor, se in mezzo al cor mi tocca.’

She wanted some explanations on the expression ‘baccia in bocca’, and on the love which made Ricciardetto’s arrow so stiff, and I, only too ready to comment on the text, made her touch an arrow as stiff as Ricciardetto’s.  Of course, she was angry at that, but her wrath did not last long.  She burst out laughing when she came to the lines,

   ’Io il veggo, io il sento, e a pena vero parmi: 
   Sento in maschio in femina matarsi.’

And then,

   ’Cosi le dissi, e feci ch’ella stessa
   Trovo con man la veritade expressa.

She expressed her, wonder that this poem abounding in obscenities had not been put on the “Index” at Rome.

“What you call obscenity is mere license, and there is plenty of that at Rome.”

“That’s a joke which should bring the censures of the Church upon you.  But what do you call obscenities, if Ariosto is not obscene?”

“Obscenity disgusts, and never gives pleasure.”

“Your logic is all your own, but situated as I am I cannot reargue your proposition.  I am amused at Ariosto’s choosing a Spanish woman above all others to conceive that strange passion for Bradamante.”