And so he had been left alone in the world, his very birth a misfortune, as poor as a sparrow and endowed by Providence with a green face and dog's ears by way of personal recommendations. Attractive qualifications, were they not? But such qualifications were really favourable ones—once for all, so they proved. A miserable boyhood, loneliness and exclusion from good fortune and all that good fortune brings, a never-ceasing, imperious call to be up and doing, no fear of getting fat and lazy, one's moral fibre was braced, one could never rest on one's oars, but must be always overhauling and passing others. Could anything be more stimulating, when the hard facts were brought home to one? What a handicap over others who “were not obliged to” to the same extent! People who could smoke cigars in the morning….
At that time, by the bedside of one of his unwashed little pupils, in a room which did not smell exactly of spring blossoms, Raoul Ueberbein had made friends with a young man—some years older than he, but in a similar position and like him ill-fated by birth in so far as he was a Jew. Klaus Heinrich knew him—indeed, he might be said to have got to know him on a very intimate occasion. Sammet was his name, a doctor of medicine; he happened by chance to have been in the Grimmburg when Klaus Heinrich was born, and had set up a couple of years later in the capital as a children's doctor. Well, he had been a friend of Ueberbein's, still was one, and they had had many a good talk about fate and duty. What is more, they had both knocked about the world.
Ueberbein, for his part, looked back with sincere pleasure to the time when he had been an elementary teacher. His activities had not been entirely confined to the class-room, he had amused himself by showing also some personal and human concern for his charges' welfare, by visiting them at home, by sharing at times their not too idyllic family life, and in doing so he did not fail to bring away impressions of a most varied kind. In truth, if he had not already tasted the bitterness of the cup of life, he would have had plenty of opportunity then to do so. For the rest, he had not ceased to work by himself, had given private lessons to plump tradesmen's sons, and tightened his waist belt so as to save enough to buy books with—had spent the long, still, and free nights in study. And one day he had passed the State examination with exceptional distinction, had soon received his promotion, had been transferred to a grammar school. As a matter of fact, it had been a sore grief to him to leave his little charges, but so the fates willed. And then it had so happened that he had been chosen to be usher at the “Pheasantry,” for all that his very birth had been a misfortune.
That was Doctor Ueberbein's story, and Klaus Heinrich, as he listened to it, was filled with friendly feelings. He shared his contempt for those who “weren't obliged to” and smoked cigars in the morning, he felt a fearful joy when Ueberbein talked in his jolly blustering way about “knocking about,” “impressions,” and the bitterness of the cup of life, and he felt as if he had been personally an actor in the scenes as he followed his luckless and gallant career from his adoption up to his appointment as grammar-schoolmaster. He felt as if he were in some general sort of way qualified to take part in a conversation about fate and duty. His attitude of reserve relaxed, the experiences of his own fifteen years of life came crowding in upon him, he felt a longing himself to retail confidences, and he tried to tell Doctor Ueberbein all about himself.
But the funny thing was that Doctor Ueberbein himself checked him, opposed any such intention most decidedly. “No, no, Klaus Heinrich,” he said; “full stop there! No confidences, if you please! Not but that I know that you have all sorts of things to tell me…. I need only watch you for half a day to see that, but you quite misunderstand me if you think I'm likely to encourage you to weep round my neck. In the first place, sooner or later you'd repent it. But in the second, the pleasures of a confidential intimacy are not for the likes of you. You see, there's no harm in my chattering. What am I? An usher. Not a common or garden one, in my own opinion, but still no better than such. Just a categorical unit. But you? What are you? That's harder to say…. Let's say a conception, a kind of ideal. A frame. An emblematical existence, Klaus Heinrich, and at the same time a formal existence. But formality and intimacy—haven't you yet learnt that the two are mutually exclusive? Absolutely exclusive. You have no right to intimate confidences, and if you attempted them you yourself would discover that they did not suit you, would find them inadequate and insipid. I must remind you of your duty, Klaus Heinrich.”
Klaus Heinrich laughed and saluted with his crop, and on they rode.
On another occasion Doctor Ueberbein said casually: “Popularity is a not very profound, but a grand and comprehensive kind of familiarity.” And that was all he said on the subject.
Sometimes in summer, during the long intervals between the morning lessons, they would sit together in the empty pavilion, or stroll about the “Pheasants” playground, discussing various topics, and breaking off to drink lemonade provided by Herr Stavenüter. Herr Stavenüter beamed as he wiped the rough table and brought the lemonade with his own hands. The glass ball in the bottle-neck had to be pushed in. “Sound stuff!” said Herr Stavenüter. “The best that can be got. No muck, Grand Ducal Highness, and you, doctor, but just sweetened fruit-juice. I can honestly recommend it!”
Then he made his children sing in honour of the visit. There were three of them, two girls and a boy, and they could sing trios. They stood some way off with the green leaves of the chestnut trees for roof, and sang folk-songs while they blew their noses with their fingers. Once they sang a song beginning: “We are all but mortal men,” and Doctor Ueberbein took advantage of the pauses to express his disapproval of this number on the programme. “A paltry song,” he said, and leaned over towards Klaus Heinrich. “A really commonplace song, a lazy song, Klaus Heinrich; you must not let it appeal to you.”