The husband never failed to return her similar answers, but after Easter he wrote to her in the preacher’s name, begging her to let him know how he could secretly see her.  She, all impatient for the meeting, advised her husband to go and visit some estates of theirs in the country, and this he agreed to do, hiding himself, however, in the house of a friend.  Then the lady failed not to write to the preacher that it was time he should come and see her, since her husband was in the country.

The gentleman, wishing thoroughly to try his wife’s heart, then went to the preacher, and begged him for the love of God to lend him his robe.  The preacher, who was a man of worth, replied that the rules of his Order forbade it, and that he would never lend his robe for a masquerade. (4) The gentleman assured him, however, that he would make no evil use of it, and that he wanted it for a matter necessary to his happiness and his salvation.  Thereupon the Friar, who knew the other to be a worthy and pious man, lent it to him; and with this robe, which covered his face so that his eyes could not be seen, the gentleman put on a false beard and a false nose, each similar to the preacher’s.  He also made himself of the same height by means of cork. (5)

4 This may be compared with the episode of Tappe-coue or Tickletoby in Pantagruel:—­“Villon, to dress an old clownish father grey-beard, who was to represent God the Father [at the performance of a mystery], begged of Friar Stephen Tickletoby, sacristan to the Franciscan Friars of the place, to lend him a cope and a stole.  Tickletoby refused him, alleging that by their provincial statutes it was rigorously forbidden to give or lend anything to players.  Villon replied that the statute reached no further than farces, drolls, antics, loose and dissolute games....  Tickletoby, however, peremptorily bid him provide himself elsewhere, if he would, and not to hope for anything out of his monastical wardrobe....  Villon gave an account of this to the players as of a most abominable action; adding that God would shortly revenge himself and make an example of Tickletoby.”—­ Urquhart’s Works of Rabelais, Pantagruel, (Book IV. xiii.)—­M.

     5 In Boaistuau’s edition the sentence runs, “and by putting
     some cork in his shoes made himself of the same height as
     the preacher.”—­L.

Thus garmented, he repaired in the evening to his wife’s apartment, where she was very piously awaiting him.  The poor fool did not tarry for him to come to her, but ran to embrace him like a woman bereft of reason.  Keeping his face bent down lest he should be recognised, he then began making the sign of the cross, and pretended to flee from her, saying the while nothing but—­

“Temptation! temptation!”

“Alas, father,” said the lady, “you are indeed right, for there is no stronger temptation than that which proceeds from love.  But for this you have promised me a remedy; and I pray you, now that we have time and opportunity, to take pity upon me.”