Free The 2 12 Pillars of Wisdom by Alexander McCall Smith Page A

Igelfeld turned it over and saw the address of the sender, typed erratically across the back flap: Professor J. G. K. L. Singh. The name made his heart sink: J. G. K. L. Singh of Chandighar, author of Dravidian Verb Shifts .
    Impulsively, von Igelfeld tossed the letter into his wastepaper bin. It had clearly met with near disaster on its trip to Germany, von Igelfeld thought; had the dog swallowed it, then it would never have arrived at all. If he threw it away now, then he was merely fulfilling its manifest destiny.
    Von Igelfeld turned away and picked up the next letter, a quiet, reassuring letter, with a solid, familiar, German stamp, and the name of the sender neatly typed in the right hand corner: Professor Dr Dr ( h.c. ) Florianus Prinzel. This was Prinzel’s monthly letter, in which he would bring von Igelfeld up to date on developments in the Institute in Wiesbaden. At the end, penned in the slightly unsettling violet ink she habitually used, would be a small postscript from Ophelia Prinzel, with heart-warming domestic news of a trivial sort. This was exactly the sort of letter which von Igelfeld liked to receive, but even as he opened it and smoothed out the pages, his gaze turned guiltily to the poor, abandoned Indian letter, with its sad stamp and its flimsy paper.
    Von Igelfeld wondered whether there was a moral obligation to read a letter. Surely the moral principles involved were the same as those which applied when somebody addressed a remark to one. One does not have to answer; but inevitably does. Yet, why should one have to answer: was there anything intrinsically wrong about ignoring somebody who said something to you if you hadn’t asked them to say something in the first place? Von Igelfeld wondered what view Immanuel Kant had expressed on this subject. Would Kant have thrown Professor J. G. K. L. Singh’s letter into his wastepaper basket? Von Igelfeld doubted it: the matter was clearly embraced by the Categorical Imperative. That settled that, but then the disturbing thought occurred: what would Jean-Paul Sartre have done if he had received a letter from J. G. K. L. Singh? Von Igelfeld suspected that Sartre might have had little compunction in doing as von Igelfeld had done, provided it made him feel authentic, but then, and here was the crucial difference , he would not have worried about it. Or would he?
    Von Igelfeld laid aside the epistle from Prinzel and retrieved the letter from the bin. Slitting open the remains of the flap, he took out the grey sheet within and unfolded it.
    ‘ Dear Professor von Igelfeld ,’ he read. ‘ Greetings from Goa, and from your colleague, Janiwandillannah Krishnamurti Singh! I am down in this part of the world making arrangements for the All-India Union Congress of Philological Studies. We are meeting here in four months time and I wonder whether you will come to read a paper. All arrangements will be made, with despatch, by myself, and it will be very good to have some of you German fellows down in these parts again. The programme will be first class, and we shall have many excellent chin-wags. Please let me know . . . ’
    Von Igelfeld sighed. Now that he had opened the letter, his questions about obligation seemed utterly answered. He would have to go: he was sure that Kant would agree.
    The organising committee of the All-India Union Congress of Philology had made a booking for von Igelfeld in the old wing of the Hotel Lisboa. It was a large, rambling hotel, surrounded by shady verandahs. The gardens of the hotel were filled with bougainvilleas, frangipanis, palms, and there were winding paths that led to small, secluded summerhouses. Von Igelfeld was delighted. The air was scented with blossom; the sky was of an echoing emptiness; Europe and all its frenzy was far beyond any conceivable horizon. He sat in the wicker chair that occupied most of the minute balcony outside his room and looked out over the tops of the gently swaying palms. What a relief it was