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By Root 956 0

they are futile and unprofitable, and take up again the broken thread of my unfortunate history. I shall tell you, then, that Don Fernando thought my presence would be troublesome to him when he put his false and evil idea into effect, and he resolved to send me to his older brother with a request for money to pay for six horses, which he intentionally bought for the sole purpose of having me leave (in order to achieve more easily his reprehensible purpose), and on the same day that he offered to speak to my father he asked me to go for the money. Could I foresee this betrayal? Could I, by some chance, even imagine it? No, of course not; instead, with great pleasure I offered to leave immediately, gratified at the good purchase he had made.

That night I spoke to Luscinda, and told her what I had arranged with Don Fernando, and said she should be confident that our virtuous and honest desires would be realized. She, as unaware as I of Don Fernando’s perfidy, told me to try to return home quickly because she believed that the fulfillment of our desires would take no longer than the time it took for my father to speak to her father. I do not know why, but after she said this her eyes filled with tears, and the lump in her throat kept her from speaking another word of the many that, it seemed to me, she was attempting to say. I was taken aback by this uncommon emotion, which I had not seen in her before, because whenever we spoke, on the occasions when good fortune and my diligence permitted it, it was with joy and gladness, and our conversations were not mixed with tears, sighs, jealousies, suspicions, or fears. I would exalt my happiness because heaven had granted me Luscinda as my lady: I exaggerated her beauty and marveled at her virtue and understanding. She returned the favor, praising in me those things that she, as a woman in love, found worthy of praise. We would tell each other a thousand trifles, things that had happened to our neighbors and friends, and the limit of my boldness was to grasp, almost by force, one of her beautiful white hands and raise it to my lips, or as far as the constraints of the grating that divided us would allow. But on the night that preceded the sad day of my departure, she wept, moaned, sighed, and then withdrew, leaving me full of confusion and alarm, apprehensive at having seen such new and melancholy signs of Luscinda’s sorrow and grief; in order not to destroy my hopes, I attributed everything to the strength of the love she had for me and the sadness that absence usually causes in those who truly love each other. In short, I set out sad and pensive, my soul filled with imaginings and suspicions, not knowing what I suspected or imagined; these were clear signs of the sad, grievous events that lay ahead of me.

I reached my destination and gave the letters to Don Fernando’s brother; I was well-received but not well-dismissed, because much to my displeasure he told me to wait for a week, in a place where his father, the duke, would not see me, because Don Fernando had asked that he send back with me a certain sum of money without his father’s knowledge; all of this was an invention of the false Don Fernando, for his brother had enough money to allow me to leave without delay. This was an order and command that I was inclined to disobey because it seemed impossible to endure so many days away from Luscinda, especially since I had left her filled with the sadness I have recounted to you; yet I obeyed, like a good servant, even though I saw that it would be at the cost of my well-being. But four days after my arrival a man came looking for me with a letter, which he gave to me, and by the address I knew it was from Luscinda because the writing was hers. I opened it, fearful and apprehensive, believing that something very important had moved her to write to me when I was far away, for when I was near she did so very rarely.

I asked the man, before I read it, who had given it to him and how long the journey had taken; he said that he happened to be walking down a street in the city at noon,