Your Inner Hedgehog by Alexander McCall Smith

Author:Alexander McCall Smith [McCall Smith, Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780593312674
Google: zSixzQEACAAJ
Amazon: 0593312678
Publisher: ANCHOR
Published: 2021-04-05T23:00:00+00:00

Château Phélan Ségur, 1961

Over the next few days von Igelfeld settled into the life of All Souls College. He spent much of his time in his room, or in the Codrington Library, working on a paper which he had done the groundwork for some time ago and only now had the opportunity to work on without interruption. He met Dr Schneeweiss for coffee on several occasions, but managed to fend off her invitations for lunch or dinner. She took his refusals in good stead, seeming to be happy enough to spend the odd hour or so in his company, bombarding him with questions about various passages in Portuguese Irregular Verbs. Von Igelfeld contained his impatience, and anyway he continued to be well disposed towards her, in spite of her importuning, on the grounds of her evident admiration for his work.

He had been in Oxford for a week when he received a note from Professor Plowson, inviting him to meet him for coffee in his room in the College.

‘It’s dreadfully remiss of me not to have been in touch before this,’ the note said. ‘I was assured by Mottle (poor chap) that you had been safely installed in your rooms, but I would still love to see you to find out if there is anything I can do to make your stay in Oxford a pleasant one.’

Von Igelfeld accepted the invitation to coffee, putting a note to this effect in Professor Plowson’s pigeonhole in the Porter’s box. The invitation was for the following day, and at the agreed hour von Igelfeld knocked loudly on the oak door on which a small wooden notice that said Professor Plowson might be found within.

Von Igelfeld had never met Professor Plowson, and so had no preconceptions as to what his host would look like. Even so, he was slightly taken aback when he found himself confronted with a man of astonishingly good looks – those of a ballroom dancing instructor, von Igelfeld thought: well groomed, his sleek, dark hair parted neatly down the middle.

‘My dear Professor von Igelfeld,’ said Plowson unctuously. ‘What a particular pleasure it is to have you in the College with us.’

Von Igelfeld thanked him. ‘The pleasure is mine too,’ he said. ‘The Codrington Library is a most congenial place to work, I must say.’

‘Of course,’ said Plowson. ‘And you will have observed, no doubt, that it has a copy of your own great work Portuguese Irregular Verbs.’

It had been the first thing that von Igelfeld had checked up on when he had first used the Library. ‘I am delighted that that is the case,’ he said.

‘Of course, I have found your book highly instructive,’ said Plowson. ‘There are so many inferior works of scholarship making it into print these days.’

‘That is very worrying,’ said von Igelfeld. He thought of Unterholzer’s book on the subjunctive and Dr Martensen’s book on the semiotics of Cistercian sign language.

‘Thank heavens, I say, for the gold standard that certain major works give us,’ continued Professor Plowson. ‘And by that, of course, I mean works such as Portuguese Irregular Verbs.

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