Now Monna Sismonda, seeing
that her husband was much abroad, and gave her little of his company,
became enamoured of a young gallant, Ruberto by name, who had long
courted her: and she being grown pretty familiar with him, and using,
perchance, too little discretion, for she affected him extremely, it so
befell that Arriguccio, whether it was that he detected somewhat, or
howsoever, waxed of all men the most jealous, and gave up going abroad,
and changed his way of life altogether, and made it his sole care to
watch over his wife, insomuch that he never allowed himself a wink of
sleep until he had seen her to bed: which occasioned the lady the most
grievous dumps, because 'twas on no wise possible for her to be with her
Ruberto. So, casting about in many ways how she might contrive to meet
him, and being thereto not a little plied by Ruberto himself, she
bethought her at last of the following expedient: to wit, her room
fronting the street, and Arriguccio, as she had often observed, being
very hard put to it to get him to sleep, but thereafter sleeping very
soundly, she resolved to arrange with Ruberto that he should come to the
front door about midnight, whereupon she would get her down, and open the
door, and stay some time with him while her husband was in his deep
sleep. And that she might have tidings of his arrival, yet so as that
none else might wot aught thereof, she adopted the device of lowering a
pack-thread from the bedroom window on such wise that, while with one end
it should all but touch the ground, it should traverse the floor of the
room, until it reached the bed, and then be brought under the clothes, so
that, when she was abed, she might attach it to her great toe.
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