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Authors: Alexander McCall Smith
Tags: Fiction
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myself, whether or not it was there. Although I might be more tempted to climb one that wasn’t there, if you see what I mean.’
‘No,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I do not. And I cannot imagine why one would join a club just because it is there. The club must do something.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Professor Waterfield. ‘And actually, old chap, would you mind terribly if we brought this line of conversation to a close? It’s just that one of the rules of this place’ – this was at lunch in the Savile – ‘one of the rules is that you aren’t allowed to discuss the club’s
raison d’être
in the club itself. Curious rule, but there we are. Perhaps it’s because it unsettles the members. London, by the way, is full of clubs that have no real reason to exist. Some more so than others. I’ve never been able to work out why Brooks’s exists, quite frankly, and then there’s the Athenaeum, which is for bishops and intellectual poseurs. I suppose they have to go somewhere. But that’s hardly a reason to establish a club for them.’
Von Igelfeld was silent. There were aspects of England that he would never understand, and this, it seemed, was one of them. Perhaps the key was to consider it a tribal society and to understand it as would an anthropologist. In fact, the more he thought of that, the more apt the explanation became, and later, when he put it to Professor Waterfield himself, the Professor nodded enthusiastically.
‘But of course that’s the right way to look at this country,’ he said. ‘They should send anthropologists from New Guinea to live amongst us. They could then write their Harvard PhDs on places like this club, and the university too.’ He paused. ‘Could the same not be said of Germany?’
‘Of course not,’ said von Igelfeld sharply; the idea was absurd. Germany was an entirely rational society, and the suggestion that it might be analysed in anthropological terms was hardly a serious one. It was typical of Professor Waterfield’s conversation, he thought, which in his view was a loosely-held-together stream of non sequiturs and unsupported assertions. That’s what came of being Anglo-Saxon, he assumed, instead of being German; the
Weltanschauung
of the former was, quite simply, wrong.
He arrived back in Germany on a Sunday afternoon, which gave him time to attend to one or two matters before getting back to work on the Monday morning. There was a long letter from Zimmermann which had to be answered – that was a priority – and von Igelfeld wrote a full reply that Sunday evening. Zimmermann was anxious to hear about Cambridge, and to get news of some of the friends whom he had made during his year there. How was Haughland (Plank)? Had Dr Mauve finished writing his riposte to the review article which Nenée-Franck had so unwisely published in the
Revue Comparative de Grammaire Contemporaine
the year before last? He should not leave it too late, said Zimmermann: false interpretations can enter the canon if not dealt with in a timely fashion and then can prove almost impossible to uproot. And what about the Hughes-Davitt Bequest? What were von Igelfeld’s preliminary conclusions, and would they appear reasonably soon in the
Zeitschrift
? Von Igelfeld went through each of these queries carefully, and was able to give Zimmermann much of the information he sought.
He made an early start in the Institute the next morning, arriving even before the Librarian, who was usually the first to come in, well in advance of anybody else. The Librarian greeted him with warmth.
‘Professor von Igelfeld!’ he exclaimed. ‘It is so wonderful to have you back. Do you know, only yesterday, my aunt asked after you! You will recall that some months before you went to Cambridge you had asked me to pass on to her your best regards. I did that, immediately, the very next time that I went to the nursing home. She was very touched that you had remembered her and she was very concerned when she
‘No,’ said von Igelfeld. ‘I do not. And I cannot imagine why one would join a club just because it is there. The club must do something.’
‘Not necessarily,’ said Professor Waterfield. ‘And actually, old chap, would you mind terribly if we brought this line of conversation to a close? It’s just that one of the rules of this place’ – this was at lunch in the Savile – ‘one of the rules is that you aren’t allowed to discuss the club’s
raison d’être
in the club itself. Curious rule, but there we are. Perhaps it’s because it unsettles the members. London, by the way, is full of clubs that have no real reason to exist. Some more so than others. I’ve never been able to work out why Brooks’s exists, quite frankly, and then there’s the Athenaeum, which is for bishops and intellectual poseurs. I suppose they have to go somewhere. But that’s hardly a reason to establish a club for them.’
Von Igelfeld was silent. There were aspects of England that he would never understand, and this, it seemed, was one of them. Perhaps the key was to consider it a tribal society and to understand it as would an anthropologist. In fact, the more he thought of that, the more apt the explanation became, and later, when he put it to Professor Waterfield himself, the Professor nodded enthusiastically.
‘But of course that’s the right way to look at this country,’ he said. ‘They should send anthropologists from New Guinea to live amongst us. They could then write their Harvard PhDs on places like this club, and the university too.’ He paused. ‘Could the same not be said of Germany?’
‘Of course not,’ said von Igelfeld sharply; the idea was absurd. Germany was an entirely rational society, and the suggestion that it might be analysed in anthropological terms was hardly a serious one. It was typical of Professor Waterfield’s conversation, he thought, which in his view was a loosely-held-together stream of non sequiturs and unsupported assertions. That’s what came of being Anglo-Saxon, he assumed, instead of being German; the
Weltanschauung
of the former was, quite simply, wrong.
He arrived back in Germany on a Sunday afternoon, which gave him time to attend to one or two matters before getting back to work on the Monday morning. There was a long letter from Zimmermann which had to be answered – that was a priority – and von Igelfeld wrote a full reply that Sunday evening. Zimmermann was anxious to hear about Cambridge, and to get news of some of the friends whom he had made during his year there. How was Haughland (Plank)? Had Dr Mauve finished writing his riposte to the review article which Nenée-Franck had so unwisely published in the
Revue Comparative de Grammaire Contemporaine
the year before last? He should not leave it too late, said Zimmermann: false interpretations can enter the canon if not dealt with in a timely fashion and then can prove almost impossible to uproot. And what about the Hughes-Davitt Bequest? What were von Igelfeld’s preliminary conclusions, and would they appear reasonably soon in the
Zeitschrift
? Von Igelfeld went through each of these queries carefully, and was able to give Zimmermann much of the information he sought.
He made an early start in the Institute the next morning, arriving even before the Librarian, who was usually the first to come in, well in advance of anybody else. The Librarian greeted him with warmth.
‘Professor von Igelfeld!’ he exclaimed. ‘It is so wonderful to have you back. Do you know, only yesterday, my aunt asked after you! You will recall that some months before you went to Cambridge you had asked me to pass on to her your best regards. I did that, immediately, the very next time that I went to the nursing home. She was very touched that you had remembered her and she was very concerned when she
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