[081]
The scholar, albeit his haughty spirit still brooded on her evil
entreatment of him, yet saw her not weep and supplicate without
a certain compunction mingling with his exultation; but vengeance
he had desired above all things, to have wreaked it was indeed sweet,
and albeit his humanity prompted him to have compassion on the
hapless woman, yet it availed not to subdue the fierceness of his
resentment; wherefore thus he made answer:
[082]
"Madam Elena,
had my prayers (albeit art I had none to mingle with them tears
and honeyed words as thou dost with thine) inclined thee that night,
when I stood perishing with cold amid the snow that filled thy
courtyard, to accord me the very least shelter, 'twere but a light
matter for me to hearken now to thine;
[083]
but, if thou art now so
much more careful of thy honour than thou wast wont to be, and
it irks thee to tarry there naked, address thy prayers to him in whose
arms it irked thee not naked to pass that night thou mindest thee
of, albeit thou wist that I with hasty foot was beating time upon
the snow in thy courtyard to the accompaniment of chattering
teeth: 'tis he that thou shouldst call to succour thee, to fetch thy
clothes, to adjust the ladder for thy descent; 'tis he in whom thou
shouldst labour to inspire this tenderness thou now shewest for thy
honour, that honour which for his sake thou hast not scrupled to
jeopardize both now and on a thousand other occasions.
[084]
Why,
then, call'st thou not him to come to thy succour? To whom
pertains it rather than to him? Thou art his. And of whom will
he have a care, whom will he succour, if not thee? Thou askedst
him that night, when thou wast wantoning with him, whether
seemed to him the greater, my folly or the love thou didst bear
him: call him now, foolish woman, and see if the love thou bearest
him, and thy wit and his, may avail to deliver thee from my folly.
[085]
'Tis now no longer in thy power to shew me courtesy of that which
I no more desire, nor yet to refuse it, did I desire it. Reserve thy
nights for thy lover, if so be thou go hence alive. Be they all thine
and his. One of them was more than I cared for; 'tis enough for
me to have been flouted once.
[086]
Ay, and by thy cunning of speech
thou strivest might and main to conciliate my good-will, calling me
worthy gentleman, by which insinuation thou wouldst fain induce
me magnanimously to desist from further chastisement of thy baseness.
But thy cajoleries shall not now cloud the eyes of my mind,
as did once thy false promises. I know myself, and better now for
thy one night's instruction than for all the time I spent at Paris.
[087]
But, granted that I were disposed to be magnanimous, thou art not
of those to whom 'tis meet to shew magnanimity. A wild beast
such as thou, having merited vengeance, can claim no relief
from suffering save death, though in the case of a human being
'twould suffice to temper vengeance with mercy, as thou saidst.
[088]
Wherefore I, albeit no eagle, witting thee to be no dove, but a
venomous serpent, mankind's most ancient enemy, am minded,
bating no jot of malice or of might, to harry thee to the bitter end:
natheless this which I do is not properly to be called vengeance but
rather just retribution; seeing that vengeance should be in excess
of the offence, and this my chastisement of thee will fall short of
it; for,
[089]
were I minded to be avenged on thee, considering what
account thou madest of my heart and soul, 'twould not suffice me
to take thy life, no, nor the lives of a hundred others such as thee;
for I should but slay a vile and base and wicked woman.
[090]
And
what the Devil art thou more than any other pitiful baggage, that
I should spare thy little store of beauty, which a few years will
ruin, covering thy face with wrinkles? And yet 'twas not for
want of will that thou didst fail to do to death a worthy gentleman,
as thou but now didst call me, of whom in a single day of his life
the world may well have more profit than of a hundred thousand
like thee while the world shall last. [091]Wherefore by this rude
discipline I will teach thee what it is to flout men of spirit, and
more especially what it is to flout scholars, that if thou escape with
thy life thou mayst have good cause ever hereafter to shun such
folly.
[092]
But if thou art so fain to make the descent, why cast not
thyself down, whereby, God helping, thou wouldst at once
break thy neck, be quit of the torment thou endurest, and make
me the happiest man alive? I have no more to say to thee. 'Twas
my art and craft thus caused thee climb; be it thine to find the
way down: thou hadst cunning enough, when thou wast minded
to flout me."
