At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

by Alexander McCall Smith

  ‘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.’

  Von Igelfeld moved to the window and peered out over the Court. A corpulent man with slicked-down dark hair, parted in the middle, was walking slowly along a path.

  ‘That is Dr Hall?’ he asked.

  ‘The very same,’ said the Porter. ‘He’s a mathematician, and I believe that he is a very famous one. Cambridge is well-known for its mathematicians. Professor Hawking, for example, who wrote that book, you know the one that everybody says they’ve read but haven’t, he’s a Fellow of that College over there, with the spire. You can just see it. There’s him and there are plenty more like him.’

  Von Igelfeld stared out of the window. He knew of A Brief History of Time, although he had certainly not read it. It had brought great fame to its author, there was no doubt about that, but did it really deserve it? Portuguese Irregular Verbs was probably of equal importance, but very few people had read it; that is, very few people outside the circles of Romance philology and there were only about . . . He thought for a moment. There were only about two hundred people throughout the world who were interested in Romance philology, and that meant that Portuguese Irregular Verbs was known to no more than that. His reflection went further: one could place all the readers of Portuguese Irregular Verbs in the Court below and still only a small part of it would be occupied. Whereas if one were to try to assemble in one place all the purchasers of Professor Hawking’s book it would be like those great crowds in Mecca or on the banks of the Ganges during a religious festival. This was unquestionably unjust, and merely demonstrated, in his view, that the modern world was seriously lacking in important respects.

  ‘I’m afraid these rooms lack a bathroom,’ said the Porter, moving away from the window. ‘That’s the problem with these old buildings. They were built in the days before modern plumbing and it has been very difficult, indeed impossible, to make the necessary changes.’

  Von Igelfeld was aghast. ‘But if there is no bathroom, where am I to wash in the morning?’

  ‘Oh, there is a bathroom,’ said the Porter quickly. ‘There’s a shared bathroom on the landing. You share with Professor Waterfield. His rooms are on the other side of the landing from yours. There’s a bathroom in the middle for both of you to use.’

  Von Igelfeld frowned. ‘But what if Professor Waterfield is in the bathroom when I need to use it? What then?’

  ‘Well,’ said the Porter, ‘that can happen. I suppose you’ll have to wait until he’s finished. Then you can use it when he goes out. That’s the way these things are normally done . . . ’ adding, almost under his breath, ‘in this country at least.’

  Von Igelfeld pursed his lips. He was not accustomed to discussing such matters with porters. In Germany the whole issue of bathrooms would be handled by somebody with responsibilities for such matters; it would never have been appropriate for a professor, and especially one in a full chair, to have to talk about an issue of this sort. The situation was clearly intolerable, and the only thing to do would be to arrange with this Professor Waterfield, whoever he was, that he should refrain from using the bathroom during those hours that von Igelfeld might need it. He could use it to his heart’s content at other times, but the bathroom would otherwise be exclusively available to von Igelfeld. That, he thought, was the best solution, and he would make the suggestion to this Professor Waterfield when they met.

  The Porter in the meantime had extracted a key from his chain and handed this to von Igelfeld. ‘I hope that you have a happy stay,’ he said brightly. ‘We are an unusual College, by and large, and it helps to have visitors.’

  Von Igelfeld stared at the Porter. This was a very irregular remark, which would never have been made by a German porter. German porters acted as porters. They opened things and closed them. That was what they did. It seemed that in England things were rather different, and it was not surprising, then, that it was such a confused society. And here he was at the intellectual heart of this strange country, where porters commented on the girth of scholars, where bathrooms were shared by perfect strangers, and where masters of colleges, after making opaque remarks about Freud and Wittgenstein suddenly burst into tears. It would clearly require all one’s wits to deal with such a society, and von Igelfeld was glad that he was a man of the world. It would be hopeless for somebody like Unterholzer, who would frankly lack the subtlety to cope with such circumstances; at least there was that to be thankful for – that it was he, and not Unterholzer, who had come here as Visiting Professor of Romance Philology.

  That evening the Master invited von Igelfeld to join him and several of the Fellows for a glass of sherry before dinner. The invitation had come in a note pushed under von Igelfeld’s door and was waiting for him on his return from a brief visit to the College Library. He had not spent much time in the Library, but he was able to establish even on the basis of the hour or so that he was there that there was an extensive collection of early Renaissance Spanish and Portuguese manuscripts in something called the Hughes-Davitt Bequest, and that these, as far as he could ascertain, had hardly been catalogued, let alone subjected to full scholarly analysis. The discovery had excited him, and already he was imagining the paper which would appear in the Zeitschrift: Lusocripta Nova: an Untapped Collection of Renaissance Manuscripts in the Hughes-Davitt Bequest at Cambridge. Readers would wonder – and well they might – why it had taken a German visiting scholar to discover what had been sitting under the noses of Cambridge philologists for so long, but that was an issue which von Igelfeld would tactfully refrain from discussing. People were used to the Germans discovering all sorts of things; most of Mycenaean civilisation had been unearthed by Schliemann and other German scholars in the nineteenth century, and the only reason why the British discovered the Minoans was because they more or less tripped up and fell into a hole, which happened to be filled with elaborate grave goods. There was not much credit in that, at least in von Igelfeld’s view. The same could be said of Egyptology, although in that case one had to admit that there had been a minor British contribution, bumbling and amateurish though it was. Those eccentric English archaeologists who had stumbled into Egyptian tombs had more or less got what they deserved, in von Igelfeld’s view, when they were struck down by mysterious curses (probably no more than
long dormant microbes sealed into the pyramids). That would never have happened had it been German archaeology that made the discovery; the German professors would undoubtedly have sent their assistants in first, and it would have been they, not the professors themselves, who would have fallen victim. But it was no use thinking about English amateurism here in Cambridge, the very seat of the problem. If he did that, then everything would seem unsatisfactory, and that would be a profitless way of spending the next four months. So von Igelfeld decided to make no conscious comparisons with Germany, knowing what the inevitable conclusions would be.

  He made his way to the Senior Common Room in good time, but when he arrived it seemed that everybody was already there, huddled around the Master, who was making a point with an animated gesture of his right hand.

  ‘Ah, Professor von Igelfeld!’ he said, detaching himself from his colleagues and striding across the room to meet his guest. ‘So punctual! Pünktlich even. You’ll find that we’re a bit lax here. We allow ten minutes or so, sometimes fifteen.’

  Von Igelfeld flushed. It was obvious that he had committed a solecism by arriving at the appointed time, but then, if they wanted him to arrive at six fifteen, why did they not ask him to do so?

  ‘But I see that everybody else is here,’ he said defensively, looking towards the group of Fellows. ‘They must have arrived before six.’

  The Master smiled. ‘True, true,’ he said. ‘But of course most of them have little better to do. Anyway, please come and meet them. They are all so pleased that you took up the Visiting Professorship. The atmosphere is quite, how shall I put it? electric with anticipation.’

  The Master took hold of von Igelfeld’s elbow and steered him deftly across the room. There then followed introductions. Dr Marcus Poynton, Pure Mathematics; Dr Margaret Hodges, French Literature; Professor Hector MacQueen, Legal History (and history of cricket too); Mr Max Wilkinson, Applied Mathematics; and Dr C. A. D. Wood, Theoretical Physics.