At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances Read Online Free PDF

to navigate his way through these shoals of allusion and concealed meaning. Of course he would be able to do it – there could be no doubt about that – but it was not exactly what he had been looking forward to after a long and trying day. Oh to be back in Germany, with Prinzel and Frau Prinzel, sitting in their back garden drinking coffee and talking about the safe and utterly predictable affairs of the Institute. What a comfortable existence that had been, and to think that it would be four months, a full four months, before he could return to Regensburg and the proper, German way of doing things.
    Shortly before they were due to go through for dinner, the Senior Common Room suddenly filled up with people, all wearing, as were von Igelfeld and the other Fellows, black academic gowns. At a signal from the Master, the entire company then processed through a narrow, panelled corridor and into the Great Hall which lay beyond. There, standing at their tables in the body of the Hall, were the undergraduates, all similarly gowned and respectfully waiting for the Master and Fellows to take their seats at the High Table.
    The Hall was a magnificent room, dominated at the far end by an immense portrait of a man in black velvet pantaloons and with a bird of prey of some sort, a falcon perhaps, perched on his arm. Behind him, an idealised landscape was framed by coats of arms.
    ‘Our founder,’ explained the Master to von Igelfeld. ‘William de Courcey. A splendid man who gave half of his fortune for the foundation of the College. He was later beheaded. So sad. I suspect that he was very charming company, when he still had his head. But then life in those days was so uncertain. One moment you were in favour and then the next you were
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. His head, apparently, is buried in the Fellows’ Garden. I have no idea where, but there is a particularly luxuriant wisteria bush which is said to be very old and I suspect that it might be under that. Possibly best not to know for certain.’
    ‘You might erect a small plaque if you found the spot,’ suggested von Igelfeld, as they took their seats at the High Table.
    ‘Good heavens no!’ said the Master, apparently shocked at the notion. ‘Can you imagine how the Fellows would fight over the wording? Can’t you just picture it? It’s the last thing we’d do.’
    Von Igelfeld was silent. It was impossible to discuss anything with the Master, he had decided; any attempt he made at conversation merely led to further diatribes against the Fellowship and, eventually, to tears. He would have to restrict himself to completely innocuous matters in any exchanges with the Master: the weather, perhaps; the English loved to talk about the weather, he had heard.
    The Master, as was proper, sat at the head of the table, while von Igelfeld, as senior guest, occupied the place which had been reserved for such guests since the days of Charles II – the fourth seat down on the right, counting from the second seat after the Master’s. On his left, again by immemorial custom, sat the Senior Tutor, and on his right, a small, bright-eyed man with an unruly mop of dark hair, Professor Prentice. On the other side of the table, directly opposite von Igelfeld, was Dr C. A. D. Wood, who was smiling broadly and who seemed to have quite got over their earlier conversation. She was flanked by Mr Wilkinson and by a person whom von Igelfeld realised he had seen before. But where? Had he met him in the Court, or had he seen him in the Library on his visit early that afternoon? He puzzled over this for a moment, and then the person in question moved his head slightly and von Igelfeld gained a better view of his features. It was the Porter.
    Von Igelfeld drew in his breath. Was the Porter entitled to have dinner at High Table? Such a thing would never have happened in Germany. Herr Bomberg, who acted as concierge and general factotum at the Institute, always knocked three times before he came into the coffee