Beresynth, who had caught the last words, came up to them with divers ungainly jumps.
"My very reverend sir," he exclaimed, "do you then yourself happen to be of such mightily exquisite beauty, that you have a right to judge thus intolerantly? My master from his youth up has been a majestic and stately man; and yet he thinks far otherwise of me and my fellows. What! you little stinted, stunted, stumpy, bile-faced animal, whose nose is for ever running crimson with spite! You with the crooked corners of your seesaw mouth, with the broken ridges and ditches in your shrivelled half-inch forehead, you would make an outcry about my ugliness! Why the bit of a dwarf can hardly peer out of its pulpit when it is hubbubbing there, and is so gossamer-shankt it durst not walk across the great square if the wind chance to be blowing strong; the congregation are hard put to find him out when he is grimacing and gesticulating before the altar, and need all their christian faith and hope to believe him actually corporeally present; and such a hop-o'-my-thumb, such a ghostly ne'er-to-be-seen, would take the tone of a Goliah here. With thy leave, thou most invisible man of godliness, one might cut out of my nose alone as stout a pillar of the faith as thou art; and I won't reckon in the brace of humps which my backbone and breastbone have built up in rivalry of each other."
The priest Theodore had already left them in anger before the end of this speech; and the melancholy Antonio chid the little dwarf for his wantonness. But the latter cried; "Now pray don't you also begin to preach. Once for all I will bear that from no one else than my master; for he came into the world on special purpose to teach morality and philosophy and their kin. But this weathercock of a priest here, that is driven round with such a creaking merely by his envy and malice, because he fancies that my noble master is lowering both his authority and his purse, he shall not unkennel his tongue from his toothless jaws, where I can but thrust in my unwasht mouth. And from a young student too I will brook no contradiction; for I used to have my beard shaved, while your father was still carried about in his chrisom-cloth; I was earning stripes at school and getting the fool's cap hung round my ears, when they put your worshipful grandfather into his first pair of breeches: so shew respect where it is due, and never forget whom you have before you."
"Don't be angry, little man," said Antonio: "I meant it well with thee."
"Mean it just as you please," returned the other. "My master is to be a prelate, do you know that yet? and lord rector of the university. And he has received a new gold chain as a token of royal favour from Paris. And you must come to him; for he is going away from Padua, and wants to speak to you once more before he sets off. And don't crawl about so among the parsons, if you mean to be a philosopher."
Hopping and jumping to and fro from side to side he ran down the street again; and Antonio said to Alfonso, who now came up to him, and who for some time past had been forming a friendship with him: "I never know, when talking to that little abortion, whether it means its words in earnest or only in jest. He seems always to be scoffing at himself and at everything else in the world."
"This," answered Alfonso, "is a kind of necessary amends to him, a way of comforting himself for his deformity: by his sneers he to his own fancy makes all other creatures just like himself. But have you heard of the new honours that have been bestowed on our illustrious teacher and master?"
"The world," replied Antonio, "acknowledges his high worth; and now that even our holy father, the pope, is making him a prelate, this will at length silence the envious priests and monks who are for ever trying to charge the virtuous and pious man with heresy."
They parted; and Antonio hurried home, to take leave of his teacher for some days. The little dwarf Beresynth was awaiting him in the doorway with a friendly grin.