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that nobleness of temper, whereof in courtesy more conspicuously than in
aught else thou hast given proof, I implore thee that thou be pleased to
give me the bird, that thereby I may say that I have kept my son alive,
and thus made him for aye thy debtor."
No sooner had Federigo apprehended what the lady wanted, than, for grief
that 'twas not in his power to serve her, because he had given her the
falcon to eat, he fell a weeping in her presence, before he could so much
as utter a word. At first the lady supposed that 'twas only because he
was loath to part with the brave falcon that he wept, and as good as made
up her mind that he would refuse her: however, she awaited with patience
Federigo's answer, which was on this wise:--"Madam, since it pleased God
that I should set my affections upon you there have been matters not a
few, in which to my sorrow I have deemed Fortune adverse to me; but they
have all been trifles in comparison of the trick that she now plays me:
the which I shall never forgive her, seeing that you are come here to my
poor house, where, while I was rich, you deigned not to come, and ask a
trifling favour of me, which she has put it out of my power to grant: how
'tis so, I will briefly tell you. When I learned that you, of your grace,
were minded to breakfast with me, having respect to your high dignity and
desert, I deemed it due and seemly that in your honour I should regale
you, to the best of my power, with fare of a more excellent quality than
is commonly set before others; and, calling to mind the falcon which you
now ask of me, and his excellence, I judged him meet food for you, and so
you have had him roasted on the trencher this morning; and well indeed I
thought I had bestowed him; but, as now I see that you would fain have
had him in another guise, so mortified am I that I am not able to serve
you, that I doubt I shall never know peace of mind more." In witness
whereof he had the feathers and feet and beak of the bird brought in and
laid before her.
The first thing the lady did, when she had heard Federigo's story, and
seen the relics of the bird, was to chide him that he had killed so fine
a falcon to furnish a woman with a breakfast; after which the magnanimity
of her host, which poverty had been and was powerless to impair, elicited
no small share of inward commendation. Then, frustrate of her hope of
possessing the falcon, and doubting of her son's recovery, she took her
leave with the heaviest of hearts, and hied her back to the boy: who,
whether for fretting, that he might not have the falcon, or by the
unaided energy of his disorder, departed this life not many days after,
to the exceeding great grief of his mother. For a while she would do
nought but weep and bitterly bewail herself; but being still young, and
left very wealthy, she was often urged by her brothers to marry again,
and though she would rather have not done so, yet being importuned, and
remembering Federigo's high desert, and the magnificent generosity with
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