down, I felt the lights dim, and I started to play.
I was in the middle of the fourth and last piece. Suddenly I felt a draft on my back. A wave of warmth rippled through my shoulder and down my spine. It got warmer and warmer. I was submerged in the heat, and for a few seconds I played better than I ever had in my whole life, with an ardor and an agility that I will never again attain.
Just before the last movement, the heat became unbearable, scalding. My temples were throbbing, my eyes twitching, and my fingers got stiff. I could no longer control them. For the first and only time in my career, I was forced to interrupt a concert.
He was in the audience.
I had felt him approach. No one had noticed him, but as soon as I stopped playing, they did. Just then, the silence in the concert hall changed. It became oppressive, unhealthy. I could feel the busybodies starting to keep score, to take bets: What would happen? Would he come up to me? Would I faint? Would we both cry?
I was thinking only of his nearness. After all these years I caught the scent of his musk and my body began to tremble. At that point, aloud, but no one could have heard me because no sound left my mouth, I said, “Good evening, Doctor Mesmer,” and I started to play again.
I was able to finish the sonata, but I did not do the encore with which I usually close each concert. When I stood up for the applause, I felt him walking away. He was taking with him the memory of a love. Of an illusion.
Chapter 28
F RANZ A NTON M ESMER NEVER RECEIVED RECOGNITION from France for his discovery of animal magnetism. In 1784, at the request of Louis XVI, a commission led by Benjamin Franklin was established to study the phenomenon. It concluded that because magnetism could not be observed directly, its existence could not be proved. Mesmer was officially declared an impostor.
He left France in 1785 and returned to his place of birth near Lake Constance. He died of a heart attack on March 5, 1815.
Maria Theresia gave concerts across Europe and met with enormous success in both Paris and London.
In 1785, she returned to Vienna, where she devoted herself mostly to composing. She wrote five operas, six concertos, twelve sonatas, plus cantatas and chamber music.
In 1800, she began teaching. She created a music school for girls in Vienna in 1808.
It is there that she died on February 1, 1824, in her sleep.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2011 by Michèle Halberstadt
interior design by Maria Fernandez
978-1-4532-1815-0
Pegasus Books LLC
80 Broad Street, 5 th Floor
New York, NY 10004
This 2011 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
I was in the middle of the fourth and last piece. Suddenly I felt a draft on my back. A wave of warmth rippled through my shoulder and down my spine. It got warmer and warmer. I was submerged in the heat, and for a few seconds I played better than I ever had in my whole life, with an ardor and an agility that I will never again attain.
Just before the last movement, the heat became unbearable, scalding. My temples were throbbing, my eyes twitching, and my fingers got stiff. I could no longer control them. For the first and only time in my career, I was forced to interrupt a concert.
He was in the audience.
I had felt him approach. No one had noticed him, but as soon as I stopped playing, they did. Just then, the silence in the concert hall changed. It became oppressive, unhealthy. I could feel the busybodies starting to keep score, to take bets: What would happen? Would he come up to me? Would I faint? Would we both cry?
I was thinking only of his nearness. After all these years I caught the scent of his musk and my body began to tremble. At that point, aloud, but no one could have heard me because no sound left my mouth, I said, “Good evening, Doctor Mesmer,” and I started to play again.
I was able to finish the sonata, but I did not do the encore with which I usually close each concert. When I stood up for the applause, I felt him walking away. He was taking with him the memory of a love. Of an illusion.
Chapter 28
F RANZ A NTON M ESMER NEVER RECEIVED RECOGNITION from France for his discovery of animal magnetism. In 1784, at the request of Louis XVI, a commission led by Benjamin Franklin was established to study the phenomenon. It concluded that because magnetism could not be observed directly, its existence could not be proved. Mesmer was officially declared an impostor.
He left France in 1785 and returned to his place of birth near Lake Constance. He died of a heart attack on March 5, 1815.
Maria Theresia gave concerts across Europe and met with enormous success in both Paris and London.
In 1785, she returned to Vienna, where she devoted herself mostly to composing. She wrote five operas, six concertos, twelve sonatas, plus cantatas and chamber music.
In 1800, she began teaching. She created a music school for girls in Vienna in 1808.
It is there that she died on February 1, 1824, in her sleep.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2011 by Michèle Halberstadt
interior design by Maria Fernandez
978-1-4532-1815-0
Pegasus Books LLC
80 Broad Street, 5 th Floor
New York, NY 10004
This 2011 edition distributed by Open Road Integrated Media
180 Varick Street
New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
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