
Most of the stories are silly, some are sad and none are focused on the plague. In another, a heartbroken woman grows basil in a pot that contains her lover’s severed head. In one story, a nun mistakenly wears her own lover’s trousers on her head, as a wimple. What do these young people do, after fleeing unspeakable suffering and horror? They eat, sing songs and take turns telling one another stories. Wild pigs sniff and tear at the rags of corpses, then convulse and die themselves. Some appear healthy at breakfast but by dinner are sharing a meal, it is said, with their ancestors in another world. The afflicted develop lumps in their groins or armpits, then dark spots on their limbs. It’s 1348, in the time of the bubonic plague. Ten young people decide to quarantine outside Florence.
