"A Princess in a tower. Remote and shining as Aldebaran. Chained to a dolt and dragon-guarded."
"Since she is his prize possession, consents to finger her a little"
"There is a lady sits in a window for one hour and one hour only at the tenderest time of dusk"
"You can scarcely see her features, the curtains almost hide her"
""Shrouded like a holy image, she looks out at the piazza as the shops shut up, the stalls go down, the night comes on"
"And that is all the world she sees. Never a girl in all Bergamo so secluded except, on Sundays, they let her go to mass, bundled up in black, wit a veil on"
Poor, lonely lady, married do young to an old dodderer with his bald pate and his goggle eyes"
"He'd put a stop to all the rutting in the world, if he had his way, just to certify his young wife don't get from another what she can't get from him"
"And she's left all alone, then, behind so many bolts and bars you wouldn't believe"
"Then, bang! a stern hand pulls the shutters to"
"Goes to the window to stare at the shutters behind which his sweetheart scrubs the blood away"
"From four thirty until five thirty, he unlocks the shutters and lets his wife look out...while the hag sits beside her to make sure she doesn't smile"