Compline

Compline is the evening canonical hour that anchors the nightly penance imposed on Fra Puccio in the story of Dom Felice and Fra Puccio’s wife. Its narrative importance lies in the precise schedule attached to it: a religious observance becomes the mechanism that keeps the husband occupied while Dom Felice visits his wife.

Place in the Daily Schedule

Dom Felice presents the penance as a route to blessedness, beginning with a careful confession and a strict forty-day fast. Each night, as Compline approaches, Fra Puccio is to go to a place in his house where he can see the sky, stand with his arms extended in the form of a cross, and remain there without moving until Matins. He is to say three hundred Paternosters and three hundred Ave Marys while contemplating heaven and remembering God as creator and Christ’s Passion.

The vigil is only one part of the schedule. At Matins, Fra Puccio may go to bed; during the forenoon he is to attend at least three masses and recite another fifty Paternosters and Ave Marys, then return to church at evensong. As Compline approaches again, he must resume the same posture. The recurring hour thus divides the day into prescribed acts of devotion and gives the nightly vigil a predictable beginning and end.

Compline as a Device in the Deception

The schedule is invented by Dom Felice, who tells Fra Puccio that the penance will purge his earlier sins and offers it as a secret practice known to leading churchmen. Fra Puccio accepts and tells his wife what he has been instructed to do. She understands the practical consequence: while her husband stands motionless until Matins, Dom Felice can visit her without attracting his suspicion.

Dom Felice comes to sup with her on most evenings, bringing food and drink, and stays with her through the night. Their chamber adjoins the place where Fra Puccio keeps vigil, separated only by a slight wall. One night, when the floor shakes, Fra Puccio calls to his wife from his station. She answers with a playful evasion, and he accepts her explanation that fasting has left her restless. The contrast is central to the episode: Fra Puccio treats the hours around Compline as a test of devotional endurance, while the couple next door use the same hours for an affair.

Narrative Significance

Compline is not presented as an independent theological subject; the evidence defines it through its place in a rule of conduct. The hour makes the false penance concrete and repeatable, lending Dom Felice’s deception the appearance of an orderly religious discipline. Because the vigil must be renewed night after night, it also sustains the affair for the duration of the forty-day fast.

The episode’s irony depends on the mismatch between the ritual’s professed purpose and its actual effect. Fra Puccio believes that his observance will cleanse sin and lead toward blessedness; in practice, the timetable keeps him apart from his wife and enables Dom Felice’s access to her. Compline therefore marks both the start of a supposed spiritual exercise and the recurring opening of the deception that exercise conceals.