The Doctor-in-Ordinary [pp. 382-393]

1884.] The 1)octo~in Ord~~ary. 387
ety now because, strange to say, he began to Miller had become doctor-in-ordinary and
study medicine. He was incessantly tor- confidant of the Prince, as well as the star
mented with the belief that he played so en- of hope of the court nobility, it was quite
vied and yet so unworthy a part because he another thing. Merit can ennoble even a
had learned nothing. The poor fellow now Miller! "Had I learned something," said
pored over medical works and college lec- Miller to himself, "I would be without
tures when he was believed to be ruling the merit; nor would I now be the Prince's docland, and contritely stole in secret to the tOr~in~ordinary~certainly not his confidant.
poor-house hospital, to make up for the time Had I learned something they would persistlost at the academic clinic; whilst his jovial ently reject my suit. There is nothing so
comrades at the tavern growled that he had bad but that it is good for something." At
again remained away out of pride. It seemed times he even believed that he really was the
to him as if this mad career must suddenly Prince's confidant. But the consultation at
end in disgrace and ruin if he did not in the the next visit had only to begin with the
mean time really become a finished doctor, state of the weather~to quickly disabuse him
and avert, through such a penance, the of this belief. A tree-frog, which he had
threatening danger. - kept for a long time, he gave away, because
So on all sides there lay mystery, confu- it reminoed him of the weather too much.
sion, error, and self-deception. The Prince At the very first sight of the animal, too, it
knew nothing of the excitement which he constantly occurred to him that he himself
had conjured up in country and town; for was not really doctor-in~ordinary, but merely
nobody dared speak of the mysterious doc- His Highness's court tree-frog.
tor in his presence. While, for the sake of Anna, who lived with an old uncle in the
public opinion, he was desirous of avoiding country, could learn as little of her beall appearances of a system of favontism, trothed's secret as anybody else. She willhe had given himself a favorite, in the opin- ingly believed the general report that their
ion of the public, of whom he knew noth- position had changed for the better. With
ing. all her quiet, gentle disposition, she had an
The court marshal groped about in the extremely penetrating mind. But she could
dark over the doctor, the nobility over the not make out the letters of her betrothed.
marshal, the doctor over the real ~bject Although he wrote to her every Saturday an
of the Prince, and the whole country over epistle of two to three sheets, wherein he
the Prince, the doctor, the marshal, and the not merely narrated minutely all his thoughts
nobility together. Because the doctor was so and feelings, but every little event of the
honest and so discreet, he provoked the wild- past week, he was silent upon the principal
est intrigues; and because he knew nothing event - his intercourse with the Prince.
whatever of the rules of a German court, Miss Anna gently approached the subject,
with the exception of a Turkish proverb, he but the doctor did not satisfy her curiosity.
was the most consummate courtier in the At first he told her the same naked truth
land. But this confusion was destined to which he told everybody; and on her become to an end with one blow, and that at the coming more urgent with him, he merely
hands of a woman-the doctor's betrothed. made the oracular reply, "Court talk is not
for young ladies' ears." This naturally
II. made the young lady all the more anxious to
know something more definite of this court
The betrothed was a poor young orphan talk, and finally she said to herself: "There
from an old aristocratic family~Anna von is a mystery here which I must solve at all
Lehberg. Her gentle relatives at first natural- hazards." Another gap in his letters looked
ly refused to recognize a suitor who signed his more suspicious ~till. Formerly, when yet
name John Jacob Millen But since this same the prospect of their wished-for wedding