Felismena and Don Félix's Love Affair

Felismena and Don Félix's Love Affair is shaped by a bitter reversal: a courtship that draws Felismena into love becomes the reason she must hide her identity and serve Don Félix while he pursues another woman. Her attachment survives his departure, his apparent change of affection, and his disappearance, turning romantic devotion into a prolonged search rather than a shared life.

Beginnings and Unequal Knowledge

Felismena's account begins with Don Félix seeing her in a garden from the terrace of his house. He makes his interest known through signs, walks, music, and tournaments held before her door. At first she pays no attention to his suffering, although she understands that he is trying to reach her. Her account leaves open whether he truly loved her or only pretended to do so, a doubt that shadows the relationship even as her own feelings grow.

When Don Félix sends a letter through her maid Rosina, Felismena initially rejects it and warns the maid not to bring another. Yet when she reads the letter, its professions of love move her; she asks Rosina's pardon, entrusts her with the secret, and reads the message again. Felismena replies cautiously. She questions whether Don Félix's words are sincere and refuses to risk her honor on promises, while acknowledging that she values what he has written. Her guarded answer does not end the courtship. It gives Don Félix the confidence to seek further conversation, and the exchange of letters, messages, and courtly performances continues for nearly a year. Felismena eventually becomes so deeply attached that she can no longer keep her feelings from him.

Separation and Disguise

The couple's growing intimacy is interrupted when Don Félix's father learns of the affair. Fearing that his son may marry Felismena, he sends him to Princess Augusta Cesarina's Court, explaining the move as a way for a young nobleman to learn rather than remain idle at home. Don Félix leaves so sadly that he does not manage to tell Felismena he is going. She learns of his departure afterward and is overwhelmed by the separation.

Felismena imagines that life at court, the presence of women of greater beauty and status, and absence itself may cause Don Félix to forget her. Rather than remain at home and wait, she takes the extraordinary step of dressing as a man and travelling to the court to find him. A trusted friend secretly obtains the clothes and a horse; Felismena leaves both her home and, as she fears, her reputation behind. She reaches the court after twenty days and lodges in a secluded house, uncertain how to discover Don Félix without exposing herself. The disguise is thus not a change in her attachment but the means by which she tries to preserve access to the person she loves.

The Page Valerio and Don Félix's New Love

Felismena's opportunity comes through Fabio, one of Don Félix's pages. She accepts his suggestion that she serve his master and is taken on as a page under the name Valerio. In this role she sees messages carried between Don Félix and the woman he now loves. The daily business of the court brings her close to him while forcing her to witness the intimacy she once hoped would be hers.

After about a month, Don Félix confides the history of his love for Celia to Valerio, not knowing that the page is Felismena. He says that Celia once treated him warmly but later withdrew her favor after hearing that he had loved someone in his home country. He acknowledges that he began the courtship as Celia had suspected, as an amusement while his court business remained unfinished, but claims that he now loves her above all. Felismena hears him describe the very pattern of changing affection that she had feared, while concealing her own identity and pain. She answers indirectly, urging him to consider the injury done to the woman he had first loved; Don Félix insists that his love for Celia now shapes how he sees that past.

Felismena's service to Don Félix carries her into the center of his courtship of Celia. When she approaches Celia on his behalf, Celia realizes that Valerio has been seeking favors for his master rather than for himself. She had believed the page's visits showed a personal interest in her, and now takes the revelation as evidence that Valerio does not love her. She rebukes him and withdraws. Felismena returns to Don Félix without telling him what has happened, saying only that a visit prevented her from speaking with Celia. In this episode, she protects her disguise even as the task assigned to her sharpens the conflict between her own devotion and her role as his intermediary.

Disappearance and Continuing Search

The next morning, the court learns that Celia has died after a fainting spell. Don Félix grieves intensely, but that same night he disappears from his house without telling his servants or anyone else where he has gone. Felismena is struck both by Celia's death and by the distress of the man she loves; the disappearance leaves her without the person she had crossed the country to find and without any explanation for his departure.

When efforts to discover Don Félix's whereabouts fail, Felismena continues the search in her male disguise. She has travelled through many places for more than two years when the narrative finds her among the shepherds and nymphs. She describes the service she can still offer them as a consolation after the greater loss of the man in whom she placed her hope. The account establishes the persistence of her attachment through repeated changes in circumstance: she first answers Don Félix's courtship, then follows him into separation, hides herself to remain near him, and finally searches after he vanishes.

Narrative Significance

The affair turns on a stark imbalance of knowledge. Don Félix once courted Felismena through letters and public signs; later, as she serves him under another name, he confides in her about his love for Celia without recognizing the woman who first answered his own. Her disguise grants proximity but denies recognition, making her both participant in and witness to his changing attachments. The contrast between his successive declarations and her sustained service gives the relationship its central tension: Felismena's fidelity persists even when Don Félix's attention has moved elsewhere, and the narrative makes her devotion visible through what she does rather than through a reciprocal promise.