Anselmo’s test of Camilla is a self-devised experiment in marital trust: convinced that virtue can only be proved by exposure to temptation, Anselmo arranges for his closest friend, Lothario, to court his wife. Lothario foresees that the experiment may destroy the very fidelity it is meant to verify, yet agrees to take part. When the staged courtship becomes real and Camilla yields, the test produces not reliable proof but the betrayal and deception Anselmo had claimed he could safely avoid.

The Experiment Anselmo Demands

Anselmo begins from apparent good fortune. He says he values his parents, his friend, Lothario, and his wife, Camilla, as the gifts that ought to make a man content. Yet he confesses to an unusual, persistent desire: he wants to know whether Camilla is as virtuous as he believes. In his view, a woman’s virtue has not been properly tested unless a worthy suitor offers promises, gifts, tears, and persistent attention. Resisting temptation, he reasons, would establish a stronger claim to praise than never having faced it.

The proposed test is not a chance encounter. Anselmo asks Lothario to become its instrument, promising to provide time and opportunity for him to speak alone with Camilla. He even proposes the materials of an elaborate courtship: money and jewels for presents, music, and verses of praise. Anselmo imagines that Lothario can press the suit far enough to make the test meaningful, but not so far that anything more than an intention would threaten the marriage. He expects the friend’s discretion to keep the supposed injury secret and the friendship intact.

Lothario’s Warning and Consent

Lothario initially treats the plan as a dangerous absurdity. He points out that Anselmo already calls Camilla modest, virtuous, pure-minded, and prudent. If she withstands the test, he asks, what more will she have proved than Anselmo already believes? If she fails, the experiment will have damaged both the marriage and the reputation Anselmo hoped to confirm. In this reasoning, the proposed proof offers no meaningful gain: success merely repeats an existing judgment, while failure risks an irreversible loss.

Lothario develops his objection through images of valuable things harmed by unnecessary testing. A fine diamond gains nothing from being struck between hammer and anvil, but may be broken; Camilla, he argues, should not be exposed to a comparable risk. He also compares virtue to the ermine’s white fur, a clear mirror that can be tarnished, and a garden whose flowers are best protected from trespass. These comparisons express his practical alternative: if Anselmo wishes to preserve Camilla’s reputation, he should remove temptations rather than place them in her path. Lothario further warns that a wife’s dishonour would affect her husband as well, making Anselmo himself a participant in the danger he proposes.

Anselmo admits the force of Lothario’s arguments and acknowledges that his friend is pursuing the good while he pursues a harmful course. He nevertheless describes his desire as an irrational craving that will not be cured by reasoning. A limited, even make-believe beginning, he insists, will satisfy him; Lothario can later explain the stratagem to Camilla and recover her esteem. Anselmo also threatens to confide his plan to someone else, which Lothario regards as a prospect of still greater harm. He therefore agrees, intending at first to satisfy Anselmo without corrupting Camilla, and accepts the arrangement of private opportunities, presents, and other courtship devices.

From Staged Access to Real Courtship

Anselmo first creates opportunities at home, leaving Lothario with Camilla while he claims to attend to business. When he later goes to the village, he instructs Camilla to receive Lothario in his absence and to treat him as she would her husband. Camilla objects that it is improper for another man to occupy her husband’s place at table, but Anselmo insists that she obey. She complies reluctantly.

Camilla tries to prevent private conversation. She keeps servants nearby, particularly Leonela, a companion brought up with her from childhood, and arranges for the household to serve meals in a way that leaves the two alone as little as possible. For the first three days, Lothario does not speak to her. Her calm bearing checks his words, but his silence does not preserve his loyalty: he watches her, reflects on her goodness and beauty, and begins to desire her. He considers leaving the city to escape the situation, then stays, and privately excuses his wavering allegiance by judging Anselmo’s scheme more foolish than his own developing faithlessness.

After Anselmo has been away for three days, Lothario begins to court Camilla in earnest. She is astonished, withdraws to her room without answering, and sends a letter to Anselmo that night. Anselmo misunderstands her warning as evidence that Lothario has begun the task successfully and orders her not to leave the house, promising to return soon. Camilla, caught between the threat to her virtue if she remains and the disobedience involved in leaving, stays. The next day Lothario presses his suit with praise, tears, promises, and entreaties. Camilla’s resolve gives way, and Leonela alone knows what has happened. Lothario does not tell Camilla that Anselmo arranged the test; he wants her to believe that his courtship sprang from his own desire.

The False Proof

When Anselmo returns, Lothario reports the opposite of what has occurred. He claims that Camilla rejected his words and presents, and that her purity makes her a model of good conduct. He returns the money untouched, using its apparent integrity as part of his assurance. Anselmo accepts this account as the confirmation he wanted and is told to be content and not to test her further. The gap between the report and the event is the experiment’s decisive reversal: Anselmo sought proof by arranging temptation, but the arrangement gives Lothario access, makes Camilla’s resistance harder, and leaves Anselmo celebrating a conclusion founded on concealment.

The episode turns on the difference between protecting a virtue and subjecting it to a trial designed by someone who claims already to know the answer. Lothario’s warning identifies the test’s basic flaw: it can expose a marriage to loss without improving Anselmo’s knowledge if Camilla resists, while her yielding would make Anselmo the cause of the result he fears. The scenes also set private desire against public honour. Camilla’s conduct is bound up with her reputation, and Lothario explicitly warns that her dishonour would implicate her husband. Anselmo’s supposed search for certainty therefore places their trust, their reputations, and his friendship at risk; his first apparent reassurance comes not from truth, but from the lie that the test has succeeded.