The 2 12 Pillars of Wisdom (29 page)

‘That is very kind of you to ask,’ said the Librarian. ‘Very thoughtful. I shall tell my aunt that you asked after her. That will make her very happy. So few people care about people like her these days. It’s good that at least somebody remembers.’ He paused, throwing a sideways glance at Unterholzer and Prinzel. ‘She will be very pleased indeed, I can assure you. And she does need some cheering up, now that they have changed her medicine and the new one takes some getting used to. It’s Dutch, you know. I wasn’t aware that the Dutch made medicines at all, but this one is said to be very good. The only problem is that it irritates her stomach and that makes her querulous at times. Not that she is always like that; it seems to be at its worst about twenty minutes after taking the pill in question. They come in peculiar yellow and white capsules, which are actually quite difficult to swallow. The last ones were white, and had the manufacturers’ initials stamped into every capsule. Quite remarkable . . .’

It was Unterholzer who interrupted him. ‘So,’ he said. ‘So this is a special day, is it not?’

Prinzel glanced nervously at Unterholzer. He had been hoping that he would not make an issue of the chair, but it seemed that he might. Really, this was most unwise. Everybody knew that von Igelfeld could be difficult, and Unterholzer really had no
legal
claim on that chair. He might have a moral claim, as people undoubtedly did develop moral claims to chairs, but this was quite different from a claim which could be defended in the face of a direct challenge. It would be far better to pass over the whole incident and for Unterholzer simply to arrive slightly early the following morning and secure the chair for himself. He could surely count on their moral support in any such manoeuvre.

‘Today, you see,’ Unterholzer went on, ‘today is special because it is the birthday of our dear colleague, Professor Dr von Igelfeld.’

‘My!’ exclaimed the Librarian. ‘The same month as my aunt! Hers is on the twelfth. What a coincidence!’

‘May Day,’ said Prinzel. ‘A distress signal at sea, but for you quite the opposite!’

They all laughed at the witticism. Prinzel was so amusing and could be counted upon to bring a welcome note of levity, particularly to a potentially difficult situation.

Von Igelfeld smiled. ‘It is very kind of you to remember, Herr Unterholzer,’ he said. ‘I had not intended to celebrate it.’

Unterholzer looked thoughtful. ‘I suppose not,’ he said. ‘A birthday can’t be much fun when one has to celebrate it all by oneself. There’s no point, really.’

Von Igelfeld stared at him. Unterholzer often took the opportunity to condescend to him, if he thought he could get away with it, and this was quite intolerable. If anybody deserved to be pitied, it was Unterholzer himself, with his wretched, out-of-date book on Portuguese subjunctives, and that nose. Who was he even to hint that von Igelfeld’s life might be incomplete in some way? It defied belief; it really did. He would tell Zimmermann himself about it, and Zimmermann, he knew, would laugh. He always laughed when Unterholzer’s name was mentioned, even before anything else was said.

Prinzel intervened rapidly. ‘I remember, Moritz-Maria, how we used to celebrate our birthdays, back in Heidelberg, when we were students. Do you remember when we went to that inn where the innkeeper gave us free steins of beer when he heard it was your birthday. He always used to call you the Baron! “Free beer for the Baron’s birthday,” he said. Those were his very words, were they not?’

Unterholzer listened closely, but with increasing impatience. This Heidelberg story had irritated him, and he was beginning to regret his act of generosity – supereroga-tory in the provocative circumstances – in drawing attention to von Igelfeld’s birthday. He had not anticipated that Prinzel would launch into this embarrassing tribute to von Igelfeld. ‘So why did he call Professor Dr von Igelfeld a baron, when he isn’t one?’ he asked. ‘Why would anyone do that?’

Prinzel smiled. ‘Because some people, even if they aren’t barons in the
technical
sense have – how shall I put it?; this really is a bit embarrassing – some of the
qualities
that one normally associates with that position in life. That is why, for example, that my friend Charles von Klain is often addressed as
Capitano
by the proprietors of Italian restaurants. He has the appropriate bearing. He has no military rank, but he could have. Do you see what I mean?’

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 which 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.