The Tales of the Heptameron, Vol. IV | Page 6

him lay; and he forthwith led Bernage into the
house, where he lodged and entertained him honourably.
It was the hour for supper, and the gentleman led him into a handsome
room, hung with beautiful tapestry, where, as soon as the meats were
served, he saw come from behind the hangings the most beautiful
woman it were possible to behold; though her head was shorn and she
was dressed in black garments of the German fashion.
After the gentleman had washed his hands with Bernage, water was
borne to the lady, who also washed hers and then sat down at the end of
the table without speaking to the gentleman, or he to her. The Lord de
Bernage looked very closely at her, and thought her one of the most
beautiful women he had ever seen, except that her face was very pale,
and its expression very sad.
After eating a little, she asked for drink, which was brought to her by a
servant in a most marvellous vessel, for it was a death's head, the
eyeholes of which were closed with silver; and from this she drank two
or three times. When she had supped, the lady washed her hands, made
a reverence to the lord of the house, and retired again behind the
tapestry without speaking to any one. Bernage was exceedingly amazed
at this strange sight, and became very melancholy and thoughtful.
The gentleman, who perceived this, then said to him--
"I perceive that you are astonished at what you have seen at this table;
but for the sake of the excellence that I find in you I will explain the
matter, so that you may not think I could show such cruelty without
reasons of great weight. The lady whom you saw is my wife; I loved
her more than ever man loved woman, insomuch that in order to marry
her I forgot all fear, and brought her hither in defiance of her relations.

On her part, she showed me so many tokens of love that I would have
risked ten thousand lives in bringing her hither, to her delight and mine.
And here we lived for a while in such peace and gladness that I deemed
myself the happiest gentleman in Christendom.
"But it came to pass, upon my undertaking a journey which my honour
compelled me to make, she forgot her honour, conscience and love for
me to such a degree as to fall in love with a young gentleman whom I
had brought up in this house, and this I thought I could perceive when I
returned home again. Nevertheless, the love I bore her was so great that
I was not able to mistrust her, until at last experience opened my eyes
and made me see what I dreaded more than death, whereupon my love
for her was turned to frenzy and despair in such wise that I watched her
closely, and one day, while feigning to walk abroad, I hid myself in the
room in which she now dwells.
"Thither she withdrew soon after my departure, and sent for the young
gentleman, whom I saw come in with such familiarity as should have
been mine alone. But when I saw him about to get upon the bed beside
her, I sprang out, seized him in her very arms, and slew him. And as
my wife's crime seemed to me so great that death would not suffice to
punish it, I laid upon her a penalty which she must hold, I think, to be
more bitter than death; and this penalty was to shut her up in the room
to which she was wont to retire to take her greatest pleasures in the
company of him for whom she had more love than she had for me; and
there I further placed in a cupboard all her lover's bones, hanging there
even as precious things are hung up in a cabinet.
"That she may not lose the memory of this villain I cause her to be
served with his skull, (2) in place of a cup, when she is eating and
drinking at table, and this always in my presence, so that she may
behold, alive, him whom her guilt has made her mortal enemy, and
dead, through love of her, him whose love she did prefer to mine. And
in this wise, at dinner and at supper, she sees the two things that must
be most displeasing to her, to wit, her living enemy, and her dead lover;
and all this through her own great sinfulness.
2 It will be remembered that the Lombard King Alboin forced his wife

Rosamond to drink his health out of a goblet which had been made
from the skull of her father Cunimond, sovereign of the Gepidæ.