Page:T.M. Royal Highness.djvu/99

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DOCTOR UEBERBEIN
83

was that Doctor Ueberbein's doctrines and apophthegms were so exceptionally supported by his personality.

When Schulrat Droge, the man who used to bow to the lackeys, reminded Klaus Heinrich of his "exalted calling," that was nothing more than an exaggerated form of speech, devoid of inner meaning and calculated mainly to add emphasis to his professional claims. But when Doctor Ueberbein, whose very birth had been a misfortune, as he said, and who had a green complexion because he had been half starved; when this man who had dragged a child out of a bog, who had received "impressions" and "knocked about" in all sorts of ways; when he who not only did not bow to the lackeys, but who bawled at them in strident tones when the fancy took him, and who had called Klaus Heinrich himself straight out by his Christian names when he had known him only three days, without asking leave to do so,—when he with a paternal laugh declared that Klaus Heinrich's "path lay among the heights of mankind" (a favourite expression of his), the effect was a feeling of freedom and originality which awoke an echo deep down in the prince's soul.

When Klaus Heinrich listened to the doctor's loud and jolly anecdotes of his life, of the "bitterness of the cup of life," he felt as he used to when he went rummaging with Ditlinde his sister, and that the man who could tell such anecdotes, that this "rolling stone," as he called himself, did not, like the others, adopt a reserved and deferential attitude towards him, but, without prejudice to a free and cheerful homage, treated him as a comrade in fate and destiny, warmed Klaus Heinrich's heart to inexpressible gratitude and completed the charm which bound him to the usher for ever.…

Shortly after his sixteenth birthday (Albrecht, the Heir Apparent, was at the time in the South for his health) the Prince was confirmed, together with the five "Phea-