ut on this matter my tongue is tied by the obligation of
secrecy binding on every Confessor. I will limit myself, therefore, to
saying that many strange tales were bruited concerning the birth of the
Signora Eletta. I saw this lady for the first time on the Piazza of
Verona on Good Friday of the year 1320, when she had just completed her
fourteenth year. And I have beheld her since in the public walks and the
Churches ladies most favour. She was like a picture painted by a very
excellent limner.

She had hair of wavy gold, a white brow, eyes of a colour never seen but
in the precious stone called aquamarine, cheeks of rose, a nose straight
and finely cut. Her mouth was a Cupid's bow, that wounded with its
smiles; and the chin was as full of laughter as the mouth. Her whole
body was framed to perfection for the delight of lovers. The breasts
were not of exaggerated size; yet showed beneath the muslin two swelling
globes of a full and most winsome roundness. As well by reason of my
sacred character, as because I never saw her but clad in her walking
dress and her limbs half hidden, I will not describe the other parts of
her fair body, which one and all proclaimed their perfection through the
stuffs that veiled them. I will only assure you, that when she was in
her accustomed place in the Church of San Zenone, there was never a
movement she could make, whether to rise to her feet or drop on her
knees or prostrate herself with forehead touching the stones, as is meet
to do at the instant of the elevation of the blessed body of Jesus
Christ, without straightway inspiring the men that saw her with an
ardent longing to hold her pressed to their bosom.

Now it came about that Signora Eletta married, when about the age of
fifteen, Messer Antonio Torlota, an Advocate. He was a very learned
man, of good repute, and wealthy, but already far advanced in years, and
so heavy and misshapen, that seeing him carrying his papers in a great
leathern bag, you could scarcely tell which bag it was dragging about
the other.

It was pitiful to think how, as the result of the holy sacrament of
wedlock, which is instituted among men for their glory and eternal
salvation, the fairest lady of Verona was bedded with so old a man, all
ruinate in health and vigour. And wise folk saw with more pain than
wonder that, profiting by the freedom allowed her by her husband, busied
all night long as he was solving the problems of justice and injustice,
Mes