Pulse

among many others. And there would be no reason for the Empress to continue her pension. Two hundred gold ducats had made a difference to their lives, And how, without it, would they commission works from leading composers?
    M— understood such a dilemma, but it could not be his primary concern. He was a physician, not a musical impresario. In any case, he was convinced that once Maria Theresia became accustomed to the sight of her hands on a keyboard, once observation ceased altering her performance, her skill would not merely return, but develop and improve. For how could it possibly be an advantage to be blind? Furthermore, the girl had chosen openly to defy her parents and continue the cure. How could he disappoint her hopes? Even if it meant distributing cudgels to his servants, he would defend her right to live under his roof.
    Yet it was not just the frenzied parents who were threatening the household. Opinion at court and in society had turned against the physician who had walled up a young woman and now refused to return her to her parents. That the girl herself also refused did not help M—’s case: in the eyes of some it merely confirmed him as a magician, a bewitcher whose hypnotic powers might not cure, but could certainly enslave. Moral fault and medical fault intertwined, giving birth to scandal. Such a miasma of innuendo arose in the imperial city that Professor Stoerk was provoked into action. Withdrawing his previous endorsement of M—’s activities, he now wrote, on 2nd May 177–, demanding that M— cease his ‘imposture’ and return the girl.
    Again, M— refused. Maria Theresia von P—, he replied, was suffering from convulsions and delirious imaginings. A court physician was sent to examine her, and reported to Stoerk that in his opinion the patient was in no condition to be sent back. Thus reprieved, M— spent the next weeks devoting himself entirely to her case. With words, with magnetism, with the touch of his hands, and with her belief in him, he succeeded in bringing her nervous hysteria under control within nine days. Better still, it presently became evident that her perception was now sharper than at any previous time, suggesting that the pathways of the eye and brain had become strengthened. He did not yet ask her if she wanted to play; nor did she suggest it.
    M— knew that it would not be possible to keep Maria Theresia von P—until she was fully cured, but did not wish to surrender her until she had acquired sufficient robustness to hold the world at bay. After five weeks of siege, an agreement was reached: M— would return the girl to her parents’ care, and they would allow M— to continue treating her as and when it might be necessary. With this peace treaty in place, Maria Theresia was handed over on 8th June 177–.
    That was the last day on which M— saw her. At once,the von P—s reneged on their word, keeping their daughter in close custody, and forbidding all contact with M—. We cannot know what was said, or done, in that household, we can know only its predictable consequence: Maria Theresia von P— relapsed immediately into blindness, a condition from which she was not to emerge in the remaining forty-seven years of her life.
    We have no account of Maria Theresia’s anguish, of her moral suffering and mental reflection. But the world of constant darkness was at least familiar to her. We may presume that she gave up all hope of cure, and also of escape from her parents; we may know that she took up her career again, first as pianist and singer, then as composer, and eventually as teacher. She learnt the use of a composition board invented for her by her amanuensis and librettist, Johann Riedinger; she also owned a hand printing machine for her correspondence. Her fame spread across Europe; she knew sixty concertos by heart, and played them in Prague, London and Berlin.
    As for M—, he was driven from the imperial city of V— by the Faculty of Medicine and the Committee to Sustain Morality, a combination which ensured that he was remembered there as half charlatan, half seducer. He withdrew first to Switzerland, and then established himself in Paris. In 178–, seven years after they had last seen one another, Maria Theresia von P— came to perform in the French capital. At the Tuileries, before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, she introduced the concerto Mozart had written for her. She and M— did not meet; nor can we tell if either of them would