Pulse

by Julian Barnes

  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 amid jars of magnetised water and to the caterwauling of a glass armonica?

  On 29th April 177–, Frau von P— was shown into M—’s study. She was clearly agitated, and refused to sit down.

  ‘I have come to remove my daughter from you.’

  ‘Has she indicated that she wishes to cease her treatment?’

  ‘Her wishes … That remark, sir, is an impertinence. Her wishes are subordinate to her parents’ wishes.’

  M— looked at her camly. ‘Then I shall fetch her.’

  ‘No. Ring for a servant. I do not care for you to instruct her how to answer.’

  ‘Very well.’ He rang; Maria Theresia was fetched; she looked anxiously from one to the other.

  ‘Your mother wishes you to cease treatment and return home.’

  ‘What is your opinion?’

  ‘My opinion is that if this is what you wish, then I cannot oppose it.’

  ‘That was not what I asked. I was asking your medical opinion.’

  M— glanced across at the mother. ‘My … medical opinion is that you are still at a precarious stage. I think it very possible that a complete cure may be effected. Equally, it is very possible that any gains made, once lost, could never be recovered.’

  ‘That is very clear. Then I choose to stay. I wish to stay.’

  The mother instantly began a display of stamping and shouting, the like of which M— had never before encountered in the imperial city of V—. It was an outburst far beyond the natural expression of Frau von P—’s Italian blood, and might even have been comical, had not her nervous frenzy set off an answering spasm of convulsion in the daughter.

  ‘Madam, I must ask you to control yourself,’ he said quietly.

  But this enraged the mother even more, and with two sources of provocation in front of her, she continued to denounce her daughter’s insolence, stubbornness and ingratitude. When M— tried to lay a hand on her forearm, Frau von P— turned on Maria Theresia, seized her, and threw her headlong into the wall. Above the women’s screams, M— summoned his staff, who held back the termagant just as she was about to set upon the doctor himself. Suddenly, another voice was added to the bedlam.

  ‘Return my daughter! Resist me and you die!’

  The door was thrown violently open, and Herr von P— himself appeared, a framed figure with sword aloft. Hurling himself into the study, he threatened to cut to pieces anyone who opposed him.

  ‘Then, sir, you will have to cut me to pieces,’ M— answered firmly. Herr von P— stopped, uncertain whether to attack the doctor, rescue his daughter, or console his wife. Unable to decide, he settled for repeating his threats. The daughter was weeping, the mother screaming, the physician attempting to argue rationally, the father noisily promising mayhem and death. M— remained dispassionate enough to reflect that the young Mozart would have happily set this operatic quartet to music.

  Eventually, the father was pacified and then disarmed. He departed with malediction on his tongue, and seeming to forget his wife, who stood for a few moments looking from M— to her daughter and back again, before herself leaving. Immediately, and for the rest of the day, M— sought to calm Maria Theresia. As he did so, he came to conclude that his initial presumption had been confirmed: Maria Theresia’s blindness had certainly been a hysterical reaction to the equally hysterical behaviour of one or both of her parents. That a sensitive, artistic child, in the face of such an emotional assault, might instinctively close herself off from the world seemed reasonable, even inevitable. And the frenzied parents, having been responsible for the girl’s condition in the first place, were now aggravating it.

  What could have caused this sudden, destructive outburst? More, surely, than a mere flouting of parental will. M— therefore tried to imagine it from their point of view. A child goes blind, all known cures fail until, after more than a dozen years, a new physician with a novel procedure begins to make her see again. The prognosis is optimistic, and the parents are rewarded at last for their love, wisdom, and medical courage. But then the girl plays, and their world is turned upside down. Before, they had been in charge of a blind virtuoso; now, sight had rendered her mediocre. If she continued playing like that, her
career would be over. But even assuming that she rediscovered all her former skill, she would lack the originality of being blind. She would be merely one pianist 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 have desired such a meeting. Maria Theresia lived on in darkness, usefully, celebratedly, until her death in 182–.

  M— had died nine years previously, at the age of eighty-one, his intellectual powers and musical enthusiasm both undiminished. As he lay dying at Meersburg, on the shores of Lake Constance, he sent for his young friend F—, a seminarist, to play for him on the glass armonica which had accompanied him through all his travels since he left 261 Landstrasse. According to one account, the pangs of his dying were soothed by listening a final time to the music of the spheres. According to another, the young seminarist was delayed, and M— died before F— could touch his chalky fingers to the rotating glass.

  Carcassonne

  IN THE SUMMER of 1839, a man puts a telescope to his eye and inspects the Brazilian coastal town of Laguna. He is a foreign guerrilla leader whose recent success has brought the surrender of the imperial fleet. The liberator is on board its captured flagship, a seven-gun topsail schooner called the Itaparica, now at anchor in the lagoon from which the town gets its name. The telescope offers a view of a hilly quarter known as the Barra, containing a few simple but picturesque buildings. Outside one of them sits a woman. At the sight of her, the man, as he later put it, ‘forthwith gave orders for the boat to be got out, as I wished to go ashore’.

  Anita Riberas was eighteen, of mixed Portuguese and Indian descent, with dark hair, large breasts, ‘a virile carriage and determined face’. She would have known the guerrilla’s name, since he had helped free her native town. But his search for both the young woman and her house was in vain, until he chanced upon a shopkeeper of his acquaintance who invited him in for coffee. And there, as if waiting for him, she was. ‘We both remained enraptured and silent, gazing on one another like two people who meet not for the first time, and seek in each other’s faces something which makes it easier to recall the forgotten past.’ That’s how he put it, many years later, in his autobiography, where he mentions an additional reason for their enraptured silence: he had very little Portuguese, and she no Italian. So he spoke his eventual greeting in his own language: ‘Tu devi esser mia.’ You must be mine. His words transcended the problem of immediate understanding: ‘I had formed a tie, pronounced a decree, which death alone can annul.’

  Is there a more romantic encounter than this? And since Garibaldi was one of the last romantic heroes of European history, let’s not quibble over circumstantial detail. For instance, he must have been able to speak passable Portuguese, since he’d been fighting in Brazil for years; for instance, Anita, despite her age, was no shy maiden but a woman already married for several years to a local cobbler. Let’s also forget about a husband’s heart and a family’s honour, about whether violence occurred or money was exchanged when, a few nights later, Garibaldi came ashore and carried Anita off. Instead, let’s just agree that it was what both parties deeply and instantly desired, and that in places and times where justice is approximate, possession is usually nine points of the law.

  They were married in Montevideo three years later, having heard reports that the cobbler might be dead. According to the historian G. M. Trevelyan, they ‘spent their honeymoon in amphibious warfare along the coast and in the lagoon, fighting at close quarters against desperate odds’. As good on a horse as he, and as brave, she was his companion in war and marriage for ten years; to his troops she was mascot, invigorator, nurse. The birth of four children did not impede her devotion to the republican cause, first in Brazil, then Uruguay, and, finally, Europe. She was with Garibaldi in the defence of the Roman Republic, and, after its defeat, in his retreat across the Papal States to the Adriatic coast. During their flight she fell mortally ill. Garibaldi, though urged to flee by himself, stayed with his wife; together they dodg
ed the Austrian white-coats in the marshes around Ravenna. In her final days, Anita held resolutely to ‘the undogmatic religion of her husband’, a fact which draws from Trevelyan a tremendous romantic flourish: ‘Dying on the breast of Garibaldi, she needed no priest.’

  Some years ago, at a booksellers conference in Glasgow, I found myself talking to two Australian women, a novelist and a cook. Or rather, listening, since they were discussing the effect of different foods on the taste of a man’s sperm. ‘Cinnamon,’ said the novelist knowingly. ‘No, not just by itself,’ replied the cook. ‘You need strawberries, blackberries and cinnamon, that’s the best.’ She added that she could always tell a meat-eater. ‘Believe me, I know. I did a blind tasting once.’ Hesitant about contributing to the conversation, I mentioned asparagus. ‘Yes,’ replied the cook. ‘It shows in the urine but it also shows in the ejaculate.’ If I hadn’t written the exchange down shortly afterwards, I might think I was remembering part of some hot dream.

  A psychiatrist friend of mine maintains that there is a direct correlation between interest in food and interest in sex. The lustful gourmand is almost a cliché; while aversion to food is often accompanied by erotic indifference. As for the normal, middle part of the spectrum: I can think of people who, because of the circles in which they move, exaggerate their interest in food; often, they are the same sort of people who (again, because of peer pressure) might claim more of an interest in sex than they actually feel. Counter-examples come to mind: couples whose appetite for food, and cooking, and eating out, has come to supplant the appetite for sex, and for whom bed, after a meal, is a place of repose not activity. But on the whole, I’d say there’s something to this theory.