OOC Information
Preferred Form of Address on A&A: … Sorry.
Contact Information: … I had to do it.
Other Characters on A&A: … No really. I saw him.
How You Found A&A: … and I had to.

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IC Information
Name:
Adolph Gregor Haus

Avatar:
Hugh Laurie

Occupation:
Medical doctor

Age:
34

Gender:
Male

Appearance:
Haus is abnormally tall and stork-like, nearing six foot five, and his thin frame and disagreeable features accentuate the impression. He always dresses in dark colours, without any regard to fashions, and he cannot be persuaded to wear anything light, excepting shirts and cravats. His appearance is always unutterably neat, except perhaps after a surgery—which messy procedures he is qualified to perform. Of notable characteristics about him, these: he walks always with a limp and must use the gentleman’s cane for its intended purpose rather than simply as a status symbol; his speech carries no trace of a Germanic accent, although he is fluent in the language; and his hands are always remarkably steady.

Regarding his features, it can only be said that a more unsympathetic countenance was never seen. While not unwholesome or disagreeable in themselves, his features are always carried in an expression of disagreeableness; argument, contention, sarcasm, and every thing else that is undesirable are writ large.

Personality:
Haus’ demeanour exactly reflects who he is. He is everything that is disagreeable. Argument is his hobby, contention his passion, sarcasm his greatest love. He will not dispense a kind word where two or three unkind ones occur to him, and he is forever criticising his acquaintance and complaining about his patients. He will not display any false sympathy, and so rarely will he feel any real sympathy that this means that to all appearances, he never is sympathetic at all. He is excessively frustrating to deal with, for he views everything in as negative a light as possible. Even a determined optimist might be rather put off by his excessively determined pessimism.

This is not to say that he cannot laugh. Quite to the contrary, he laughs at every thing that is not funny, and is not too proud to laugh at himself, for he holds a perverse love of self-ridicule close to his heart. He aspires to strip the world of pretence by mockery, and feels that it would be hypocritical to do any less in his own case. He is endlessly amused by his own sarcasm, and finds the greatest of comfort in his own company. Nevertheless, if he is forced to socialise, he will do his very best to cast a pall over the entire event, unless one of three circumstances should be fulfilled: either it is already a very gloomy event, or he should be in the company of people who will argue with him tirelessly, or he should be in the company of people whose opinions and temperament are very near his own.

Haus is very prejudiced against stupid people—or what he defines as stupidity. He is not obscenely harsh with people who are mentally challenged in his medical opinion, but with people who are given to hysteria, or who have no drive to learn new things, or who cannot be bothered to exert themselves at all, or basically any personality trait that particularly annoys him, Haus has little patience. He has no pity for people who have got themselves into situations that they cannot get out of via the exercise of the aforementioned objectionable personality traits, and he will not exert himself greatly to help them. However, if he sees a person as admirable (or at least tolerable), he will be willing to exert himself on their behalf. Or not, as it suits him.

He has little shame, but can be made to feel it in astonishingly rare circumstances. His loyalties to crown and country, if they existed—which it is almost certain that they do not—would lie with the British, rather than with the country of his ancestry. As he defines himself more in terms of what he opposes instead of supporting any major cause, he is much more willing to say that he hates every other country more than he hates England, instead of actually uttering a “God save the Queen.” He especially hates Germany, even though he cannot remember the time that he spent there. If Haus has an irrational prejudice, it would be a certain dislike for Germans.

Haus is addicted to his own painkillers, most notably laudanum, as it works the best. His thigh was damaged in the duel with his English benefactor’s son, and did not heal properly, and thus causes him pain on a daily basis. He takes just enough laudanum to suppress this, not enough to affect his judgement, but has as a result become addicted both physically and mentally to the drug. He could, perhaps, wean himself off it and onto the relatively new Bayer drug, aspirin, except that Bayer is German.

History:
Adolph Haus was born thirty-four years ago, in Germany, to an heiress of great fortune but little sense. Having come into her wealth earlier than expected due to the deaths of both her parents and any relatives who might have had a greater claim to the riches, his mother proceeded to act without regard to propriety or good sense in the spending of her fortune and in her personal life, and attracted a number of those charming young men whom are always attracted by women of wealth and beauty and dull wit. It was one of these very young men who ruined her virtue, and, as the young man in question was already married to a woman of lesser fortune at the time, there was no possibility of covering up the affair with a propitious marriage. His mother was therefore cut off from all good society, since vice must not be encouraged and other tender ladies should not be exposed to such wickedness, and she was forced into retirement.

Needless to say, one could not expect his mother to care for a natural child in her retirement, and Haus, with nothing other than the present of his name, was given into the care of a nurse. An obstinate child from birth, he had the incivility to survive all childhood blights, and absolutely refused to succumb to a bout of diphtheria or a convenient fever. He lived to remain a permanent blemish on his mother’s conscience and reputation, not even having the graciousness to afford her the pity that the death of a child necessarily garners a mother.

This astonishingly ungrateful behaviour inspired his mother to wish him gone from her presence at all times, and this was a desire easily fulfilled by sending him, along with enough money to excuse his burdensome person, to England, to reside with poor second or perhaps third cousins of hers. He was only three years old at the time. Here he lived in absolute squalor, as these relatives of hers were so unfortunate in their income that they were only able to afford seven servants, without even having a steward. Haus, his status far inferior to the proper children of the household, was nevertheless treated with every kindness which might conceivably be accorded him—the family was even so generous as to arrange for his admittance into a very good boarding-school as soon as it was possible for him to go.

He went through his education at the normal pace, being a very keen pupil but with such a disagreeable personality that those who might have propelled him forward declined to do so. Being a natural child, it was certain that he would have to go into one of the professions, and since he had absolutely no inclination towards religion (Haus in the clergy – perish the thought), and could not make himself agreeable enough towards his fellow men to secure a commission as an officer, he of necessity was forced into medicine. He completed all the usual education in good order, and in addition was licensed in surgery, and set up a practice in town. However, owing to a particular coolness between him and his English relatives, he was forced to leave town. He did not manage to escape before duelling with one of the sons of that family, however, and a wound to the thigh was inflicted upon him. It did not heal properly, as it was jounced about in the post-chaise when he left London the very next day.

He relocated to the city of Lindebo, and the misfortune that had befallen his practice in London was removed for the greater part—now any lack of custom could not be blamed on his relatives, but only on his own disagreeable manner. However, as a more than capable doctor, approaching brilliance in the area, there are many among the upper classes who will suffer his personality in order to obtain his superior doctoring, and so for the past eight years his practice has grown to include many of the affluent. He is well-settled now and has no plans to move again at any time.

Strengths:

• Brilliant command of medicine
• Keen mind
• Endlessly amusing to self
• Handles money well
• Educated
• Multi-lingual: English, German, Latin and Greek

Weaknesses:

• Natural son
• Absolutely without family connection
• Hideously bad bedside manner
• Grating personality
• Bum leg
• Addicted to own painkillers

Weapons:
N/A

Picture:
Coming Soon