This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of thefile for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making anentire meal of them. D.W.]
By Georg Ebers
Every Leipziger knows well the tall gabled house in the Katherinenstrassewhich I have in mind. It stands not far from the Market Place, and isparticularly dear to the writer of this true story because it has been inthe possession of his family for a long time. Many curious things havehappened there worthy of being rescued from oblivion, and though myrelatives would now like to relieve me of this task, because I have foundit necessary to point out to certain ingenuous ones among them the truthwhich they were endeavoring to conceal, I rejoice that I have sufficientleisure to chronicle for future generations of Ueberhells the wonderfullife and doings of their progenitor as I learned them from my grandmotherand other good people.
So here, then, begins my story.
Of old, the aforementioned house was known as "The Three Kings," but inno otherwise was it distinguished from its neighbours in the street savethrough the sign of the Court apothecary on the ground floor; this hungover the arched doorway, and gay with bright colour and gildingrepresented the three patron Saints of the craft: Caspar, Melchior, andBalthasar.
This house in the Katherinenstrasse continued to be called "The ThreeKings," although, soon after the death of old Caspar Ueberhell, the signwas removed, and the shop closed. And many things happened to it and thehouse which ran counter to the usual course of events and the wishes ofthe worthy burghers.
Gossip there had been in plenty even during the lifetime of the oldCourt apothecary whose only son Melchior had left his father's houseand Leipsic not merely to spend a few years in Prague, or Paris or Italylike any other son of well-to-do parents who wished to perfect himselfin his studies, but, as it would seem, for good and all.
Both as school-boy and student Melchior had been one of the most giftedand most brilliant, and many a father, whose son took a wicked delightin wanton and graceless escapades, had with secret envy congratulated oldUeberhell on having such an exceptionally talented, industrious andobedient treasure of a son and heir. But later not one of these menwould have exchanged his heedless scrapegrace of a boy for the muchbepraised paragon of the Court apothecary, since, after all, a bad sonis better than none at all.
Melchior, in fact, came not home, and that this weighed on the mind ofthe old man and hastened his death was beyond doubt; for although thestately Court apothecary's rotund countenance remained as round andbeaming as the sun for three years after the departure of his boy, itbegan gradually to lose its plumpness and radiance until at length it wasas faded and yellow as the pale half moon, and the cheeks that had oncebeen so full hung down on his ruff like little empty sacks. He alsowithdrew more and more from the weighing house and the Raths-keller wherehe had once so loved to pass his evenings in the company of other worthyburghers, and he was heard to speak of himself now and then as a "lonelyman." Finally he stayed at home altogether, perhaps because his face andthe whites of his eyes had turned as yellow as the saffron in his shop.There he left Schimmel, the dispenser, and the apprentice entirely incharge, so that if any one wished to avoid the Court apothecary that wasthe surest place. When, in the end, he died at