Pulse

claiming that his field of understanding was complete, and that a final, harmonious synthesis of truth was being offered to the reader, would have been denounced as a charlatan; and likewise those philosophers of the human heart who deal in storytelling, would have been – and would be – wise not to make any such claim either.
    We can know, for instance, that M— and Maria Theresia von P— had met before, a dozen years previously; but we cannot know whether or not she had any memory of the event. We can know that she was the daughter of Rosalia Maria von P—, herself the daughter of Thomas Cajetan Levassori della Motta, dance master at the imperial court; and that Rosalia Maria had married the imperial secretary and court counsellor Joseph Anton von P— at the Stefanskirche on 9th November 175–. But we cannot tell what the mixing of such different bloods entailed, and whether it was in some way the cause of the catastrophe that befell Maria Theresia.
    Again, we know that she was baptised on 15th May 175–, and that she learnt to place her fingers on a keyboard almost as soon as she learnt to place her feet on the floor. The child’s health was normal, according to her father’s account, until the morning of 9th December 176–, when she woke up blind; she was then three and a half years old. It was held to be a perfect case of amaurosis: that is to say, there was no fault detectable in the organ itself, but the loss of sight was total. Those summoned to examine her attributed the cause to a fluid with repercussions, or else to some fright the girl had received during the night. Neither parents nor servants, however, could attest to any such happening.
    Since the child was both cherished and well-born, she was not neglected. Her musical talent was encouraged, and she attracted both the attention and the patronage of the empress herself. A pension of two hundred gold ducats was granted to the parents of Maria Theresia von P—, with her education separately accounted for. She learnt the harpsichord and pianoforte with Kozeluch, and singing under Righini. At the age of fourteen she commissioned an organ concerto from Salieri; by sixteen she was an adornment of both salons and concert societies.
    To some who gawped at the imperial secretary’s daughter while she played, her blindness enhanced her appeal. But the girl’s parents did not want her treated as the society equivalent of a fairground novelty. From the start, they had continually sought her cure. Professor Stoerk, court physician and head of the Medical Faculty, was regularly in attendance, and Professor Barth, celebrated for his operations on cataract, was also consulted. A succession of cures was tried, but as each failed to alleviate the girl’s condition, she became prone to irritation and melancholia, and was assailed by fits which caused her eyeballs to bulge from their sockets. It might have been predictable that the confluence of music and medicine brought about the second encounter between M— and Maria Theresia.
    M— was born at Iznang on Lake Constance in 173–. The son of an episcopal gamekeeper, he studied divinity at Dillingen and Ingolstadt, then took a doctorate in philosophy. He arrived in V— and became a doctor of law before turning his attention to medicine. Such an intellectual peripeteia did not, however, indicate inconstancy, still less the soul of a dilettante. Rather M— sought, like Doctor Faustus, to master all forms of human knowledge; and like many before him his eventual purpose – or dream – was to find a universal key, one thatwould permit the final understanding of what linked the heavens to the earth, the spirit to the body, all things to one another.
    In the summer of 177–, a distinguished foreigner and his wife were visiting the imperial city. The lady was taken ill, and her husband – as if such were a normal medical procedure – instructed Maximilian Hell, astronomer (and member of the Society of Jesus), to prepare a magnet which might be applied to the afflicted part. Hell, a friend of M—’s, kept him informed of the commission; and when the lady’s ailment was said to be cured, M— hastened to her bedside to inform himself about the procedure. Shortly thereafter, he began his own experiments. He ordered the construction of numerous magnets of different sizes: some to be applied to the stomach, others to the heart, still others to the throat. To his own astonishment, and the gratitude of his