But the real curse of my days was being instructed in the actual impersonation. We had the tremendous advantage, as I was to see for myself later, that Carl Gustaf and I were real doppelgängers, as like as two tits. Even our voices were the same, but he had mannerisms and tricks of speech that I had to learn, and the only way was for me to try attitudes and phrases over and over, in different styles, until Rudi would snap his fingers and exclaim: “Er ist es selbst! Now say it again, and yet again.”

For example, it seemed that if you asked Carl Gustaf a question to which the normal answer would have been “yes” or “of course”, he, instead of contenting himself with “ja”, would often say “sicher”, which means “positively, certainly”, and he would say it with a jaunty air, and a little stab of his right forefinger. Again, in listening to people, he would look past them, giving tiny occasional nods of his head and making almost inaudible grunts of agreement. Lots of people do this, but I don’t happen to be one of them, so I had to practise until I found myself doing it almost without thinking.

And he had a quick, brisk laugh, showing his teeth—I worked at that until my throat smarted and my jaws ached. But this was easy compared with the contortions I went through in trying to mimic his trick of raising one eyebrow by itself; I came near to setting up a permanent twitch in one cheek, and eventually they decided to let it be, and hope that no one noticed that my eyebrows perversely worked together.

Fortunately, Carl Gustaf was a cheerful, easy-going chap, much as I am myself, but I had to work hard to try to correct the sulky look I get when I’m out of sorts, and my habit of glowering and sticking out my lower lip. This ray of Danish sunshine didn’t glower, apparently; when he was in the dumps he showed it with an angry frown, so of course I had to knit my brows until they ached.

How well I learned my lessons you may judge when I tell you that to this day I have his trick of rubbing one hand across the back of the other (when thinking deeply), and that I entirely lost my own habit of scratching my backside (when puzzled). Royalty—I have Bersonin’s solemn word for it—never claw at their arses to assist thought.

Now the result of all this, day after day, and of the unbroken pretence that my cantors kept up, was remarkable and sometimes even frightening I suppose I’m a good actor, to begin with—after all, when you’ve been shamming all your life, as I have, it must come pretty natural—but there were times when I forgot that I was acting at all, and began to half-believe that I was Carl Gustaf. I might be practising before the long cheval glass, with Rudi and Bersonin watching and criticising, and I would see this bald-headed young fellow in the green hussar rig flashing his smile and stabbing his forefinger, and think to myself, “Aye, that’s me”—and then my mind would try to recapture the picture of the dark, damn-you-me-lad-looking fellow with the curly hair and whiskers—and I would discover that I couldn’t do it. That was when I found it frightening—when I had forgotten what my old self looked like.