At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances

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