" A small matter this seemed to them; and so, on their
return to Ravenna, they lost no time in conveying Nastagio's message to
his intended guests: and, albeit she was hardly persuaded, yet in the end
the damsel that Nastagio loved came with the rest.
Nastagio caused a lordly breakfast to be prepared, and had the tables set
under the pines about the place where he had witnessed the slaughter of
the cruel lady; and in ranging the ladies and gentlemen at table he so
ordered it, that the damsel whom he loved was placed opposite the spot
where it should be enacted. The last course was just served, when the
despairing cries of the hunted damsel became audible to all, to their no
small amazement; and each asking, and none knowing, what it might import,
up they all started intent to see what was toward; and perceived the
suffering damsel, and the knight and the dogs, who in a trice were in
their midst. They hollaed amain to dogs and knight, and not a few
advanced to succour the damsel: but the words of the knight, which were
such as he had used to Nastagio, caused them to fall back,
terror-stricken and lost in amazement. And when the knight proceeded to
do as he had done before, all the ladies that were there, many of whom
were of kin to the suffering damsel and to the knight, and called to mind
his love and death, wept as bitterly as if 'twere their own case.
When 'twas all over, and the lady and the knight had disappeared, the
strange scene set those that witnessed it pondering many and divers
matters: but among them all none was so appalled as the cruel damsel that
Nastagio loved, who, having clearly seen and heard all that had passed,
and being ware that it touched her more nearly than any other by reason
of the harshness that she had ever shewn to Nastagio, seemed already to
be fleeing from her angered lover, and to have the mastiffs on her
flanks.
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