Pulse

manner which, in other circumstances, he would have judged uncivil.
    ‘It is a nose.’
    ‘It is ridiculous.’
    ‘You are the only person cruel enough to have made that observation,’ he said, pretending to be piqued. ‘Others have found it acceptable, even agreeable.’
    ‘Are all … noses like that?’
    ‘There are differences, but, charming Fräulein, I must warn you that this is by no means anything out of the ordinary, as far as noses go.’
    ‘Then I shall have much cause for laughter. I must tell Zwelferine about noses.’
    He decided on an additional experiment. Maria Theresia had always enjoyed the presence, and the affection, of the house dog, a large, amiable beast of uncertain species. Now M— went to the curtained door, opened it slightly, and whistled.
    Twenty seconds later, Maria Theresia was saying, ‘Oh, a dog is a much more pleasing sight than a man.’
    ‘You are, sadly, not alone in that opinion.’
    There followed a period when her improving sight ledto greater cheerfulness, while her clumsiness and error in the face of this newly discovered world drew her down into melancholy. One evening M— took her outside into the darkened garden and suggested that she tip her head backwards. That night the heavens were blazing. M— briefly found himself thinking: black and white again, though happily much more black than white. But Maria Theresia’s reaction took any anxiety away. She stood there in astonishment, head back, mouth open, turning from time to time, pointing, not saying a word. She ignored his offer to identify the constellations; she did not want words to interfere with her sense of wonder, and continued looking until her neck hurt. From that evening on, visual phenomena of any distinction were automatically compared to a starry sky – and found wanting.
    Though each morning M— continued his treatment in exactly the same way, he now did so with a kind of feigned concentration. Within himself he was debating between two lines of thought, and between two parts of his intellectual formation. The doctor of philosophy argued that the universal element which underlay everything had surely now been laid bare in the form of magnetism. The doctor of medicine argued that magnetism had less to do with the patient’s progress than the power of touch, and that even the laying on of hands was merely emblematic, as was the application of magnets and of the wand. What was actually happening was some collaboration or complicity between physician and patient, so that his presence and authority were permitting the patient to cure herself. He did not mention this second explanation to anyone, least of all the patient.
    Maria Theresia’s parents were as astonished by the further improvement in their daughter as she was by the starry heavens. As the news spread, friends and well-wishers began to turn up at 261 Landstrasse to witness the miracle. Passers-by oftenlingered outside the house, hoping to glimpse the famous patient; while letters requesting her physician’s attendance at sickbeds across the city arrived each day. At first M— was happy to allow Maria Theresia to demonstrate her ability to distinguish colours and shapes, even if some of her naming was not yet faultless. But such performances palpably tired her, and he severely restricted the number of visitors. This sudden ruling had the effect of increasing both the rumours of miracle-working and the suspicions harboured by some fellow members of the Faculty of Medicine. The case was also beginning to make the Church uneasy, since the popular understanding was that M— had only to touch the afflicted part of a sick person for the sickness to be healed. That anyone other than Jesus Christ might effect a cure by the laying on of hands struck many of the clergy as blasphemous.
    M— was aware of these rumours, but felt confident in the backing of Professor Stoerk, who had come to 261 Landstrasse and been officially impressed by the working of the new cure. What then did it matter if other members of the Faculty muttered against him, or even dropped the slander that his patient’s new-found ability to name colours and objects was in fact due to close training? The conservative, the slowwitted and the envious existed in every profession. In the longer term, once M—’s methods were understood and the number of cures increased, all men of reason would be obliged to believe him.
    One day when Maria Theresia’s state of mind was at its