Note: An excerpt from Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, published circa 1619. The original text was untitled and this title was assigned by Borges and Bioy in 1955. Kerrigan did not reprint the original text ("A Gentlewoman fell in such a phantasie or phrensie with one Mr. Dod, a puritan preacher...") but rather rendered the Spanish version into modern English.

Synopsis: A gentlewoman fell madly in love with a preacher and asked her husband for permission to lie with him, in order to beget an angel or saint. Permission was granted, but the birth was an ordinary one.