The jester listened attentively, without interrupting him, until Ulrich finished his story with the words “And while I was gone, the bailiffs and dogs tracked them, but my father resisted, and they killed him and the doctor.”

“Yes, yes,” murmured the jester.  “It’s a pity about Costa.  Many a Christian might feel honored at resembling some Jews.  It is only a misfortune to be born a Hebrew, and be deprived of eating ham.  The Jews are compelled to wear an offensive badge, but many a Christian child is born with one.  For instance, in Sparta they would have hurled me into the gulf, on account of my big head, and deformed shoulder.  Nowadays, people are less merciful, and let men like us drag the cripple’s mark through life.  God sees the heart; but men cannot forget their ancestor, the clod of earth—­the outside is always more to them than the inside.  If my head had only been smaller, and some angel had smoothed my shoulder, I might perhaps now be a cardinal, wear purple, and instead of riding under a grey tilt, drive in a golden coach, with well-fed black steeds.  Your body was measured with a straight yard stick, but there’s trouble in other places.  So your father’s name was Adam, and he really bore no other?”

“No, certainly not.”

“That’s too little by half.  From this day we’ll call you in earnest Navarrete:  Ulrich Navarrete.  That will be something complete.  The name is only a dress, but if half of it is taken from your body, you are left half-bare and exposed to mockery.  The garment must be becoming too, so we adorn it as we choose.  My father was called Kurschner, but at the Latin school Olearius and Faber and Luscinius sat beside me, so I raised myself to the rank of a Roman citizen, and turned Kurschner into Pellicanus. . . .”

The jester coughed violently, and continued One thing more.  To expect gratitude is folly, nine times out of ten none is reaped, and he who is wise thinks only of himself, and usually omits to seek thanks; but every one ought to be grateful, for it is burdensome to have enemies, and there is no one we learn to hate more easily, than the benefactor we repay with ingratitude.  You ought and must tell the artist your history, for he has deserved your confidence.

The jester’s worldly-wise sayings, in which selfishness was always praised as the highest virtue, often seemed very puzzling to the boy, yet many of them were impressed on his young soul.  He followed the sick man’s advice the very next morning, and he had no cause to regret it, for Moor treated him even more kindly than before.

Pellicanus intended to part from the travellers at Avignon, to go to Marseilles, and from there by ship to Savona, but before he reached the old city of the popes, he grew so feeble, that Moor scarcely hoped to bring him alive to the goal of his journey.

The little man’s body seemed to continually grow smaller, and his head larger, while his hollow, livid cheeks looked as if a rose-leaf adorned the centre of each.