I had divested myself of my monk's habit, and cut away the cowl from Madonna's.

She had thereafter fashioned it by means that were mysterious to my dull man's mind into a more feminine-looking garb.
Thus we now presented ourselves to the old man who was the sole tenant of that lonely and squalid house.

A ducat opened his door as wide as it would go, and gave us free access to every cranny of his dwelling.

Food he procured us--rough black bread, some pieces of roasted goat, and some goat's milk--and on this we regaled ourselves as though it had been a ducal banquet, for hunger had set us in the mood to account anything delicious.

And when we had eaten we fell to talking, the old man having left us to go about such peasant duties as claimed his attention, and our talk concerned ourselves, our future first, and later on our past.