Girolamo and Salvestra
Intro
- Storyteller: Neifile
- Neifile warns against "presumption": acting like you know more than others and pitting yourself against everyone and the laws of Nature.
- Love is one of those things that defies wisdom, knowledge or outside pressure.
- Her story, therefore, will be about a woman who tried to outwit Love and lost it all.
Story
- A boy named Girolamo was born to a wealthy merchant, who dies when the boy is still young.
- Girolamo falls in love early with a completely unsuitable neighbor girl called Salvestra (her dad's a tailor, and Girolamo's mum doesn't approve).
- Mom punishes him, lectures him, but to no effect. So she and his guardians decide to pack him off to Paris.
- But Girolamo won't be parted from Salvestra. Mom coaxes him by saying he only has to go for one year.
- Of course, he stays away for a lot longer. By the time he returns, Salvestra's married.
- To make matters worse, Salvestra has forgotten him.
- Driven mad by disappointment, Girolamo decides he has to speak to her in person.
- He decides to creep up on her at night while she's in bed with her husband.
- Salvestra nearly has a heart attack. She turns out to be very practical, telling him to get the heck out of there.
- Salvestra says that she loves her husband and they're not kids anymore.
- Girolamo wants to die. In fact, he's already turning cold. So he begs Salvestra to let him into bed to warm up.
- Amazingly, she agrees. Girolamo literally holds his breath until he dies. Best. Tantrum. Ever.
- Salvestra's in an awkward situation. How does she get rid of his body without her husband finding out?
- The answer is: she's not. Instead, she wakes her husband and asks him, hypothetically, what he'd do if he were in that situation. You know, just hypothetically.
- The husband says that he'd bring the corpse back to its proper house.
- Well, says Salvestra, you'd better get your shoes on. She grabs his hand and makes him feel Girolamo's cold corpse.
- Her husband is a real peach. He slings the body over his shoulder and deposits it on Girolamo's doorstep.
- When the body's discovered, everyone knows that Girolamo died of grief.
- At the church, Salvestra's husband asks her to go closer to the body so that she can hear if there's any gossip.
- When she sees Girolamo, she begins to regret that she didn't kiss him.
- She's so overwhelmed by Girolamo's dead face and the memory of their love that she drops down dead from grief, right on top of his body.
- Everyone understands immediately why Salvestra died. Her husband then tells the whole story and the two lovers are buried in the same tomb.
- That is one evolved husband.