Felismena becomes Don Félix’s page and carries messages of love for him

Felismena’s service as Don Félix’s page turns her disguise into a painful instrument of the very love she hopes to preserve: under the name Valerio, she carries his messages to Celia and helps sustain a courtship that leaves her heartbroken. The episode, recounted by Felismena as part of her own story, makes the page both a trusted intermediary and a concealed rival whose loyalty requires her to work against her own wishes.

Entry into Don Félix’s Service

While traveling in disguise, Felismena encounters Fabio, a page in Don Félix’s household. Fabio explains that his master is looking for a page and describes Don Félix as unusually considerate toward his servants. The arrangement offers Felismena a way to remain near the man she loves, though Fabio’s casual remarks about the household’s love troubles foreshadow the emotional cost of entering it.

Felismena gives her assumed name as Valerio and says she comes from the Province of Vandalia. She had not intended to enter anyone’s service, but decides that Don Félix’s household is the best available place for her. Don Félix receives her as a page and treats her well. For a time, she watches messages pass between him and others; rather than ordinary errands, these exchanges expose her to the details of his love affair and make service itself a source of distress.

Don Félix Confides in His Page

After about a month, Don Félix grows sufficiently close to Valerio to disclose the history and present condition of his love for Celia. He says that Celia first treated him favorably but later withdrew her favor after hearing that he had loved another woman in his homeland. He admits that the earlier love existed, while insisting that his present attachment to Celia is now profound. The woman he describes is Felismena, though he does not recognize her beneath her disguise.

Don Félix asks Valerio to keep the confidence. When he reads Celia’s letter aloud, its reproach centers on his past attachment: she suggests that a woman who has been left for another may herself be left in turn. Valerio advises him not to divide his thoughts between a new passion and the first love, and argues that absence alone should not undo genuine love. Don Félix recognizes the force of this advice but says that absence cooled his earlier love and inflamed the later one. For Felismena, hearing him describe that change is a fresh injury: she must counsel him about a betrayal that is also her own experience.

Carrying the Messages

Don Félix entrusts Valerio with a letter for Celia, asking the page to deliver it and return with an answer. Felismena accepts the errand despite knowing that it makes her an agent in Don Félix’s pursuit of another woman. When she reaches Celia’s house, Celia is struck by Valerio’s appearance and asks how Don Félix came to take the new page into his service so quickly. Felismena answers courteously and uses the opportunity to urge Celia to respond favorably to her master.

In the exchange that follows, Felismena praises Celia’s beauty and discretion while describing the absent Felismena as unhappy and unwise. The self-description is part of the disguise: Celia asks directly about the woman Don Félix had loved before, not realizing that the page is speaking of herself. Felismena’s praise is also a practical appeal, meant to encourage Celia to favor Don Félix. Celia agrees to answer, but says she had resolved not to love a man who had left another woman for her. Valerio counters that Celia’s qualities explain why Don Félix changed his attachment, presenting his praise as loyalty to his master while concealing the personal wound beneath it.

A Go-Between Caught Between Two Loves

Celia’s written reply gives Don Félix hope, and his pleasure at receiving it through Valerio becomes another pain for Felismena. For more than two months, Celia conceals how strongly she has come to care for the page. Meanwhile, Don Félix grows more anxious as Celia seems increasingly unwilling to favor him. Because Valerio delivers his messages and pleads his case, Don Félix comes to rely on the page as the route through which he can reach her.

Felismena tries to keep both relationships from collapsing. She weeps before Celia and asks her to pity Don Félix, whose suffering appears so severe that Felismena fears for his life. She also sometimes invents messages rather than let Celia see Don Félix as rejected and despairing. These interventions are not simple acts of deceit for personal gain: Felismena fears that if Celia turns completely against Don Félix, his distress will deepen, while openly returning Celia’s affection might also cause Celia to withdraw her favors from him. She therefore tries to protect the happiness of the man she loves by helping him pursue someone else, and to manage Celia’s feelings without revealing her own identity.

The Breakdown of the Arrangement

The arrangement fails when Celia understands that Valerio is asking for Don Félix’s sake, not merely using the errands as an excuse to visit her. She reproaches the page for not returning her affection and concludes that the tears and appeals had concealed no love for her. She declares that Don Félix must not see her again and orders Valerio to stay away as well. Then she withdraws into a room and shuts the door, refusing Felismena’s attempts to explain or make amends; from within, she threatens to take her own life.

The episode ends at this rupture, without establishing Celia’s eventual fate. Its central irony is already complete: Felismena’s disguise gives her access to Don Félix, but the trust that access earns binds her to his courtship of Celia. Her fidelity appears through service, secrecy, and self-denial, while the messages meant to bring two people together expose the emotional cost of making herself their intermediary.