Pulse

calmest, M— invited her parents to attend him that afternoon. He then proposed to his patient that she take up her instrument, unaccompanied and unbandaged. She enthusiastically agreed, and the four of them proceeded to the music room. Chairs were set out for Herr von P— and his wife, while M— took a stool close to the klavier, the better to observe Maria Theresia’s hands, eyes and moral condition. She took several deep breaths and then, after a barely endurablepause, the first notes of a sonata by Haydn fell upon their ears.
    It was a disaster. You might have thought the girl a novice and the sonata a piece she had never played. The fingering was inept, the rhythms flawed; all grace and wit and tenderness vanished from the music. When the first movement stumbled to a confused halt, there was a silence during which M— could sense the parents exchanging glances. Then, suddenly, the same music began again, now confidently, brightly, perfectly. He looked across at the parents, but they in turn had eyes only for their daughter. Turning towards the klavier, M— realised the cause of this sudden excellence: the girl had her eyes tightly closed and her chin raised high above the keyboard.
    When Maria Theresia reached the end of the movement, she opened her eyes, looked down, and went back to the beginning. The result, again, was chaos, and this time M— thought he guessed the reason: she was following her hands transfixedly. And it seemed that the very act of watching was destroying her skill. Fascinated by her own fingers, and the way they moved across the keyboard, she was unable to bring them under her full control. She observed their disobedience until the end of the movement, then rose and ran to the door.
    There was yet another silence.
    Eventually, M— said, ‘It is to be expected.’
    Herr von P—, red with anger, replied, ‘It is a catastrophe.’
    ‘It will take time. Every day there will be an improvement.’
    ‘It is a catastrophe. If news of this gets out, it will be the end of her career.’
    Unwisely, M— put the question, ‘Would you rather your daughter could see, or could play?’
    Herr von P—, now choleric, was on his feet, with his wife beside him. ‘It was not, sir, a choice I remember you offering when we brought her to you.’
    After they left, M— found the girl in a deplorable condition. He sought to reassure her, telling her it was no surprise that the sight of her fingers disconcerted her playing.
    ‘If it was no surprise, why did you not warn me?’
    He reminded her that her sight had been improving on an almost daily basis, and so it was inevitable that her playing would also improve, once she became accustomed to the presence of her fingers on the keys.
    ‘That is why I played the piece a third time. And it was even worse than the first.’
    M— did not argue the point. He knew from his own experience how, in matters of art, the nerves occupied a vital part. If you played badly, your spirits fell; if your spirits were low, you played worse – and so, decliningly, on. Instead, M— pointed to the wider improvement in Maria Theresia’s condition. This did not satisfy her either.
    ‘In my darkness, music was my entire consolation. To be brought into the light and then lose the ability to play would be cruel justice.’
    ‘That will not happen. It is not a choice. You must trust me that such will not be the case.’
    He looked at her, and followed the development, and the departure, of a frown. Eventually, she replied, ‘Apart from the matter of pain, you have always been worthy of trust. What you have said might happen has happened. Therefore, yes, I trust you.’
    In the following days, M— was made aware that his earlier dismissal of the outside world’s opinion had been naive. A proposal arrived from certain members of the Faculty of Medicine that endorsement of the practice of magnetic healing should only be given if M— could reproduce his effects with a new patient, under full lighting and in the presence of six Faculty examiners – conditions which would, M—knew, destroy its effectiveness. Satirical tongues were already asking if in the future all doctors would be equipped with magic wands. More dangerously, some were questioning the moral wisdom of the procedure. Did it help the status and respectability of the profession if one of their number took young women into his household, cloistered them behind drawn curtains, and then laid hands upon them