Masetto Speaks Again and Reaches an Arrangement with the Nuns

Masetto’s decision to speak turns his successful deception into a negotiation over its limits. Unable to serve the abbess and the other women indefinitely while maintaining his feigned muteness, he reveals that he can speak and forces the convent to find a solution that protects both his well-being and its reputation.

Breaking the Silence

After the abbess discovered him asleep in the garden, she took Masetto to her chamber and kept him there for several days. She continued to summon him afterward, demanding more than her share. The arrangement that had begun with the nuns had expanded: by the time Masetto spoke, he was expected to serve nine women. His silence had helped him conceal what was happening, but it also prevented him from objecting as the demands accumulated.

One night, while alone with the abbess, Masetto explained that a single man could not meet the needs of so many women. He said that he had reached a point where he could do no more, and asked either to be released or for a remedy to be found. His speech immediately unsettled the abbess, who had believed him dumb. Masetto then explained that he had not been mute by nature: an illness had deprived him of speech, and he had recovered his voice only that night. The claim gave her a way to accept his sudden speech without treating his long silence as deliberate concealment.

A Settlement for the Convent

When the abbess asked what he meant by having to serve nine, Masetto told her how the arrangement had developed. She recognized that the nuns had been more far-sighted than she had been, but she did not let him leave. Instead, she consulted them about how to resolve the strain without allowing Masetto to expose the convent and bring it into disrepute.

The nuns openly acknowledged to one another what each had previously kept secret. With Masetto’s consent, they agreed on a public explanation: his voice had returned after long muteness through their prayers and the merits of the saint to whom the convent was dedicated. The story recast a private sexual arrangement as a miraculous recovery, preserving the institution’s standing while allowing Masetto to speak openly and remain there.

Office, Wealth, and Return

The settlement also changed Masetto’s position. Because the convent’s bailiff had recently died, the nuns appointed Masetto in his place and distributed his work so that he could endure it. He was no longer required to bear the previous demands without any means of speaking or bargaining; he remained at the convent under an arrangement made with the nuns’ knowledge and his agreement.

The secret stayed concealed until after the abbess’s death. By then Masetto had grown old and wished to return to his home, and the eventual disclosure of what had happened made it easy for him to do so. He went back rich and a father, although he had left with only an axe over his shoulder. His decision to speak therefore does not end the deception with public exposure: it converts a precarious secret into a negotiated arrangement, and gives him the means to leave with the benefits he has accumulated.