A hilarious tale from The Art of seduction sidebar stories

There once lived in the town of Gafsa in Barbary, a very rich man who had numerous kids, among then a lovely and graceful young daughter Alibech. She was not herself a Christian but there were many Christians in the town. One day, having on occasion heard them extol the Christian faith and service of God, she asked one of them for his opinion on the best and easiest way for a person to ‘serve God’ as they put it.

He answered by saying that the ones who served God best were those who put the greatest distance between themselves and earthly goods, as happened in the case of people who had gone to live in the remoter parts of the Sahara.

She said no more about it to anyone, but the next morning, being a very simple –natured creature of 14 or thereabouts, Alibech set out all alone, in secret and made her way towards the desert, prompted by nothing more logical than a strong adolescent impulse.

A few days later, exhausted from fatigue and hunger, she arrived in the heart of the wilderness where, catching sight of a small hut in the distance, she stumbled toward it and in the doorway she found a holy man who was astonished to see her in those parts and asked her what she was doing there. She told him that she’d been inspired by God and that she was trying not only to serve him, but also find someone who could teach her how she’d go about it.

On observing how young and exceedingly pretty she was, the good man was afraid to take her under her wing, lest the devil should catch him unawares. So he praised her for her good intentions and having given her a quantity of herb roots, wild apples and dates to eat and some water to drink, he said to her, “My daughter, not very far from here there’s a holy man who is much more capable than I of teaching you what you want to know. Go along to him” and he sent her upon her way.

When she came to the second man, she told him precisely the same thing and so went on until she arrived at the cell of a young hermit, a very devout and kindly fellow called Rustico to who she put the same inquiry as she’d done to the others. Being anxious to prove to himself that he possessed a will of iron, he did not, like the others, send her away or direct her elsewhere, but kept her with him in his cell, in a corner of which, when night descended, he prepared a makeshift bed out of palm leaves, upon which he invited her to come and rest. Once he’d taken this step, very little time elapsed before temptation went to war against his will power and after the first few assaults, finding himself outmaneuvered on all fronts; he laid down his arms and surrendered. Casting aside pious thoughts, prayers and exercise, he began to concentrate his mental faculties upon the youth and beauty of the girl and to devise suitable ways and means for approaching her in such a fashion that she’d not think it lewd of him to make the sort of proposal he had in mind. By putting certain questions to her, he soon discovered that she’d never been intimate with the opposite sex and was every bit as innocent as she seemed; he therefore thought of a possible way to persuade her, with the pretext of serving God, to grant his desires.

He began delivering a long speech in which he showed her how powerful an enemy the devil was to God, and followed this up by impressing upon her that all the ways of serving God, the one that he most appreciated consisted of putting the devil back in hell, to which the almighty had consigned him in the first place. The girl asked him how this was done, and Rustico replied. “You will soon find out, but just do as you see me doing for the present.” And so saying, he began to divest himself completely naked. The girl followed his example and he sank to his knees as though he were about to pray, getting her to kneel directly opposite. In this posture, the girls’ beauty was displayed to Rustico in all its glory and his longings blazed more fiercely than ever, bringing about the resurrection of the flesh. Alibech stared at this in amazement and said, “Rustico, what is that I see sticking out in front of you, which I do not possess?”

“Oh, my daughter,” said Rustico, “This is the devil I was telling you about. Do you see what he’s doing? He’s hurting me so much that I can hardly endure it.”

“Oh, praise be to God,” said the girl. “I can see that I’m better than you are for I have no such devil to contend with”

“You are right there,” he said. “But you have something else instead that I haven’t.

“Oh?” said Alibech “and what’s that? “

“You have hell,” he said. “and I honestly believe that God has sent you here for the salvation of my soul because if this devil continues to plague the life out of me and if you are prepared to take sufficient pity upon me, to let me put him back into hell, you will be giving me marvelous relief, as well as rendering incalculable service and pleasure to God, which is what you say you have come here for in the first place.”

“Oh father, she replied, “If I really do have hell, let’s do as you suggest just as soon as you are ready.

“God bless you my daughter,” he said. “Let’s go and put him back and then perhaps he’ll leave me alone.”

At which point he conveyed the girl to one of their beds, where he instructed her in the art of incarcerating that accursed fiend. Never having put a single devil into hell before, the girl found the first experience a little painful and she said to Rustico.

“The devil must certainly be a bad lot, true enemy, for as well as plaguing mankind; he even hurts hell when driven back inside it.”

“Daughter, he said, “It will not always be like that,” and in order to ensure it wouldn’t, before moving from the bed, they put him back half a dozen times, curbing his arrogance to such good effect that he was positively glad to keep still all day.

During the next few days, the devils’ pride frequently reared its head again and the girl, ever ready to obey the call to duty and bring him under control, happened to develop a taste for the sport and began saying to Rustico, “I can certainly see what those worthy men in Gafsa meant when they said that serving God was so agreeable. I don’t honestly recall ever having done anything that gave me so much pleasure and satisfaction as I get from putting the devil back in hell. To my way of thinking, anyone who devotes his energies to anything but the service of God is a complete blockhead….”

And so young ladies, if you stand in need of God’s grace, see that you learn to put the devil back in hell, for this is greatly to his liking and pleasurable to the parties concerned and a great deal of good can arise and flow in the process.

By Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron.Translated by G.H. McWilliam