German fiction -- Translations into English; Netherlands -- History -- Eighty Years' War, 1568-1648 -- Fiction
"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.
He often told his travelling-companions about his former life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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