The double doors stood open and through these there emerged a moment after our halting a tall, thin man whose restless eyes surveyed us swiftly, whose thin-lipped mouth smiled a greeting to Messer Arcolano in the pause he made before hurrying down the steps with a slip-slop of ill-fitting shoes.
This was Messer Astorre Fifanti, the pedant under whom I was to study, and with whom I was to take up my residence for some months to come.
Seeing in him one who was to be set in authority over me, I surveyed him with the profoundest interest, and from that instant I disliked him.
He was, as I have said, a tall, thin man; and he had long hands that were very big and bony in the knuckles. Indeed they looked like monstrous skeleton hands with a glove of skin stretched over them. He was quite bald, save for a curly grizzled fringe that surrounded the back of his head, on a level with his enormous ears, and his forehead ran up to the summit of his egg-shaped head. His nose was pendulous and his eyes were closely set, with too crafty a look for honesty. He wore no beard, and his leathery cheeks were blue from the razor. His age may have been fifty; his air was mean and sycophantic. Finally he was dressed in a black gaberdine that descended to his knees, and he ended in a pair of the leanest shanks and largest feet conceivable.
To greet us he fawned and washed his bony hands in the air.
“You have made a safe journey, then,” he purred. “Benedicamus Dominum!”
“Deo gratias!” rumbled the fat priest, as he heaved his rotundity from the saddle with the assistance of one of the grooms.
They shook hands, and Fifanti turned to survey me for the second time.
“And this is my noble charge!” said he. “Salve! Be welcome to my house, Messer Agostino.”
I got to earth, accepted his proffered hand, and thanked him.
Meanwhile the grooms were unpacking my baggage, and from the house came hurrying an elderly servant to receive it and convey it within doors.
I stood there a little awkwardly, shifting from leg to leg, what time Doctor Fifanti pressed Arcolano to come within and rest; he spoke, too, of some Vesuvian wine that had been sent him from the South and upon which he desired the priest's rare judgment.