At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances (2 page)

Unterholzer shook his head. ‘I do not see why people should be called Baron or Count, or even
Capitano
for that matter, when they are not entitled to these titles.’

‘It is not an important thing,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘It is really nothing.’

‘But it is!’ said the Librarian. ‘These things are important. One of the doctors who visits my aunt’s nursing home is a Polish count. Of course he doesn’t use the title, but do you know, one of the other patients there, a charming lady from Berlin, could spot it. She said to my aunt: “That Dr Wlavoski is an aristocrat. I can tell.” And do you know, when they asked the Director of the nursing home, he confirmed it! He explained that the Wlavoskis had been an important family of landowners in the East and they had been dispossessed – first by our own authorities when they invaded – and that was most unfortunate and regrettable – and then again by the Russians when they came in. They were a very scientifically distinguished family and they all became physicians or astronomers or the like, but the fact that they had been counts somehow shone through.’

They all looked at the Librarian. The conversation was intensely embarrassing to von Igelfeld. The von Igelfelds were certainly not from that extensive and ubiquitous class of people, the ‘vegetable nobles’ (for whom
von
was nothing more than an address). Of course he could be addressed as Baron by only the very smallest extension of the rules of entitlement; after all, his father’s cousin had been the Freiherr von Igelfeld, the title having been granted to the family by the Emperor Francis II, and on his mother’s side there were barons and baronesses aplenty, but this was not something that people like him liked to discuss.

‘Perhaps we should change the subject,’ said Prinzel, who could sense Unterholzer’s hostility. The problem there was that Unterholzer would have liked to have been mistaken for a baron, but never could be. It was out of the question. And it was not just a question of physical appearance – which alone would have precluded it – it was something to do with manner. Unterholzer was just too . . . too clumsy to pass for anything but what he was, which was a man of very obscure origins from some dim and undistinguished town in a potato-growing area somewhere.

‘Yes,’ said Unterholzer. ‘A good idea. We are, after all, meant to be serious people. Talk about barons and all such nonsense is suitable only for those silly magazines that you see at the railway station. Such silliness. It’s surprising that it survives. So let us talk about your birthday, Herr von Igelfeld! How are you going to celebrate it?’

‘I am not proposing to do anything in particular,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I shall possibly go out for dinner somewhere. I don’t know. I have not thought about it.’

‘A birthday is a good time to review the past year,’ said Prinzel. ‘I always think over what I’ve done. It’s useful to do that.’

‘Or indeed to review one’s entire life,’ suggested Unterholzer. ‘You might think with some satisfaction of all your achievements, Herr von Igelfeld.’ This remark was quite sincere. In spite of his envy, Unterholzer admired von Igelfeld, and would have liked to have been more like him. He would have loved to have written
Portuguese Irregular Verbs
himself and to have enjoyed von Igelfeld’s undoubted distinction. But of course he had not, and, in moments of real honesty, he acknowledged that he never would.

‘Yes,’ said Prinzel. ‘You have done so much. You could even write your autobiography. And when you wrote it, the final chapter would be: Things Still Left to Be Done. That would allow it to end on a positive note.’

‘Such as?’ interjected Unterholzer. ‘What has Professor Dr von Igelfeld still to do?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Prinzel. ‘He has done so much. We had better ask him.’ He turned to von Igelfeld, who was taking a sip of his coffee. ‘What would you really like to do, Herr von Igelfeld?’

Von Igelfeld put down his coffee cup and thought for a moment. They were right. He had done so much; he had been to so many conferences; he had delivered so many lectures; he had written so many learned papers. And yet, there were things undone, that he would like to do. He would like, for example, to have gone to Cambridge, as Zimmermann had done only a few years before. They had given Zimmermann a lodge for a year when he had been a visiting professor and von Igelfeld had visited him there. The day of his visit had been a perfect summer day, and after taking tea on the lawns of the lodge they had driven out to Grantchester in Zimmermann’s car and had drunk more tea possibly under the very chestnut trees which Rupert Brooke had referred to in his poem. And von Igelfeld had felt so content, and so pleased with the scholarly atmosphere, that he had decided that one day he too would like to follow in Zimmermann’s footsteps and visit this curious English city with its colleges and its lanes and its feeling of gentleness.

‘I should like to go to Cambridge,’ he announced. ‘And indeed one day I shall go there.’

Unterholzer listened with interest. If von Igelfeld were to go to Cambridge for an appreciable length of time, then he might be able to get his office for the duration of his time away. It was a far better office than his own, and if he simply moved in while von Igelfeld was away nobody would wish to make a fuss. After all, what was the point of having empty space? He could give his own office over to one of the research assistants, who currently had to share with another. It was the logical thing to do. And so he decided, there and then, to contact his friend at the German Scholarly Exchange Programme and see whether he could fix an invitation for von Igelfeld to go to Cambridge for a period of six months or so. A year would be acceptable, of course, but one would not want to be too greedy.

‘I hope your wish comes true,’ said Unterholzer, raising his coffee cup in a toast to von Igelfeld. ‘To Cambridge!’

They all raised their coffee cups and von Igelfeld smiled modestly. ‘It would be most agreeable,’ he said. ‘But perhaps it will never happen.’

‘My dear Professor von Igelfeld!’ said the Master, as he received von Igelfeld in the drawing room of the Lodge. ‘You really are most welcome to Cambridge. I take it that the journey from Regensburg went well. Of course it will have.’

Von Igelfeld smiled, and bowed slightly to the Master. He wondered why the Master should have made the Panglossian assumption that the journey went well. In his experience, journeys usually did not go well. They were full of humiliations and assaults on the senses; smells that one would rather not smell; people one would rather not meet; and incidents that one would rather had not happened. Perhaps the Master never went anywhere, or only went as far as London. If that were the case, then he might fondly imagine that travel was a comfortable experience.

‘No,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘It was not a good journey. In fact, quite the opposite.’

The Master looked aghast. ‘My dear Professor von Igelfeld! What on earth went wrong? What on earth happened?’

‘My train kept stopping and starting,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘And then my travelling companions were far from ideal.’

‘Ah!’ said the Master. ‘We cannot always choose the company we are obliged to keep. Even in heaven, I suspect, we shall have to put up with some people whom we might not have chosen to spend eternity with, were we given the chance. Hah!’

Von Igelfeld stared at the Master. Was this a serious remark, to which he was expected to respond? The English were very difficult to read; half the things they said were not meant to be taken seriously, but it was impossible, if you were German, to detect which half this was. It may be that the Master was making a serious observation about the nature of the afterlife, or it may be that he thought that the whole idea of heaven was absurd. If it were the former, then von Igelfeld might be expected to respond with some suitable observation of his own, whereas if it were the latter he might be expected to smile, or even to laugh.

‘The afterlife must surely be as Dante described it,’ said von Igelfeld, after a short silence. ‘And one’s position in the circle will determine the company one keeps.’

The Master’s eyes sparkled. ‘Or the other way round, surely. The company one keeps will determine where one goes later on. Bad company; bad fate.’

‘That is if one is easily influenced,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘A good man may keep bad company and remain good. I have seen that happen.’

‘Where?’ said the Master.

‘At school,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘At my Gymnasium there was a boy called Müller, who was very kind. He was always giving presents to the younger boys and putting his arm around them. He cared for them deeply. He was in a class in which most of the other boys were very low, bad types. Müller used to put his arm around these boys too. He never changed his ways. His goodness survived the bad company.’

The Master listened to this story with some interest. ‘Do people read Freud these days in Germany?’ he asked.

Von Igelfeld was rather taken aback by this remark. What had Freud to do with Müller? Again there was this difficult English obliqueness. Perhaps he would become accustomed to it after a few months, but for the moment it was very disconcerting. In Germany people said what they meant; they had the virtue of being literal, and that meant that everything was much clearer. This was evidently not the case in Cambridge. ‘I believe that he has his following,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘There are always people who are prepared to find the base motive in human action. Professor Freud is a godsend to them.’

The Master smiled. ‘Of course, you are right to censure me,’ he said. ‘We live in an age of such corrosive cynicism, do we not?’

Von Igelfeld raised a hand in protest. ‘But I have not censured you! I would never dream of censuring you! You are my host!’ He was appalled at the misunderstanding. What had he said that had caused the Master to conclude that he was censuring him? Was it something to do with Freud? Freudians could be very sensitive, and it was possible that the Master was a Freudian. In which case, perhaps his remark had been rather like telling a religious person that his religious views were absurd.

‘I meant no offence,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I had no idea that you were so loyal to Vienna.’

The Master gave a start. ‘Vienna? I know nothing about Vienna.’

‘I was speaking metaphorically,’ said von Igelfeld hastily. ‘Vienna. Rome. These are places that stand for something beyond the place itself.’

‘You are referring to Wittgenstein, I take it,’ said the Master. ‘There used to be some of the older dons who remembered him. A most unusual figure, you know. He used to like going to the cinemas in Cambridge, where he would eat buttered toast. Very strange behaviour, but acceptable in a man of that ability.’

Von Igelfeld smiled. ‘I have never eaten toast in a cinema,’ he said.

‘Nor I,’ said the Master, somewhat wistfully. ‘There is so much in this life that I haven’t done. So much. And when I think of the years, and how they slip past.
Eheu! Eheu, fugaces!
’

The Master looked up at von Igelfeld, at this tall visitor, and, extracting a handkerchief from his trouser pocket, he suddenly began to cry.

‘Please excuse me,’ he said, between sobs. ‘It’s not easy being the Master of a Cambridge college. People think it is, but it really isn’t. It’s hard, damnably hard! And I get no thanks for it, none at all. All I get is criticism and opposition, and moans and complaints from the College Fellows. Their rooms are too cold. The college wine cellars are not what they used to be. Somebody has removed the latest
Times Literary Supplement
and so on. All day. Every day. Oh, I don’t know. Please excuse me. I know it doesn’t help to cry, but I just can’t help it. If you knew what it was like, you’d cry too. They say such beastly things to me. Beastly. Behind my back and sometimes to my face. Right to my face. I bet they didn’t do that to Wittgenstein when he was here. I bet they didn’t. They just pick on me. That’s all they do.’

Von Igelfeld leaned forward and put an arm round the Master’s shoulders. Just like Müller, he reflected.

Von Igelfeld was shown to his rooms by the Porter, a gaunt man who walked with a curious, halting gait up the winding stone stairway that led to von Igelfeld’s door.

‘A very good set of rooms, this is,’ said the Porter. ‘We reserve these rooms for the Master’s personal guests and for distinguished visitors, like yourself, sir. You get a very fine view of the Court – probably the best view there is – and a passable view of the College Meadows.’

He unlocked a stout oak door on which von Igelfeld noticed that a painted name plate bearing his name had already been fixed. This was a pleasant touch, and he made a mental note to make sure that they made a similar gesture in future to visitors to the Institute. Or at least they would do it for some of their visitors; some they wished to discourage – some of Unterholzer’s guests, for example – and it would be unwise to affix their names to anything.

The Porter showed von Igelfeld round the rooms. ‘You have a small kitchen here, sir, but I expect that you’ll want to eat in Hall with the other Fellows. The College keeps a good table, you know, and the Fellows like to take advantage of that. That’s why we have so many fat academic gentlemen around the place, if you’ll forgive the observation. Take Dr Hall out there, just for an example. You see him crossing the Court? He likes his food, does our Dr Hall. Always first in for lunch and always last out. Second helpings every time, the Steward tells me.’