Mourning de Pachmann: The Quest for the Spirit of Chopin

CHAPTER ONE

A great war leaves the country with three armies: an army of cripples, an army of mourners and an army of thieves. (German proverb)

Charles Flemming loved trains, but now he was feeling he had endured enough train travel. He looked at his watch, and was pleased to see it was almost 10:45 a.m. He had been making notes in his diary, and was relieved it was already Friday, January 13th but he was not superstitious about that conjunction; the new year, 1933, seemed to be off to a good start. The daily express train from Milan to Rome was moving at full speed along the remaining fifty kilometres of tracks towards its final destination. Flemming, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto Medical School, sighed with relief as the outskirts of the city soon began to emerge in the train’s windows. Grey smoke from the coal burning locomotive drifted intermittently by the window, and he could occasionally catch a glimpse of the engine as the train navigated a sharp curve. He had examined these European locomotives carefully on several occasions when there had been an opportunity to leave the train and walk the platform. They had many features that differed from Canadian locomotives. One that had amused him on several occasions was the whistle — brief and high pitched. As he gazed through the window two young children waved to everyone as they leaned over the gate of a farm, one of the many he had seen flying by.

The sun was shining through low clouds, and the train interior felt decidedly warmer than on the previous day. He had become accustomed to the atmosphere in his compartment—the sounds and smells from inside and out. Outside it was a mix of coal smoke and the smell of farm manure. Ten minutes before he had become aware that someone in a nearby compartment had opened a package of ripe cheese, likely a raclette. It was still faintly obvious, but he loved cheese so it was not unpleasant. Since joining the train he had been served some French, Swiss and Italian varieties of cheeses that were new to him.

A fellow traveller passing by in the corridor, and pausing briefly to scrutinize the well-dressed passenger seated alone in the compartment, would describe a middle-aged man with a somewhat pale complexion, straight dark brown hair worn somewhat long on the sides and back. The early morning sun streaming through the carriage window highlighted in silhouette his pointed nose and a conventional chin. It appeared that he had not shaved for several days judging from his obvious dark stubble. When he was not occupied making notes with a pencil in a small notebook, he glanced out the window at the passing countryside. If an observer could have examined Flemming from outside the window his nearly transparent blue eyes encircled by dark shadows—giving the appearance of someone who had slept poorly—would have been seen closing briefly as if seeking sleep. When they were open and he was gazing out they would have displayed the typical rapid to-and-fro movements of railway nystagmus.

Flemming was coming to the end of a long and tiresome three-day journey from London. He had seen the progressive change in geography and climate as he watched the countryside pass by, through France and Italy. When he last visited Italy in 1926, he had taken a different route to Rome—through Switzerland. The landscape in both France and Italy no longer looked ravaged by the senseless war that had ended fifteen years ago.

He had not found it easy to sleep on the train—snatching only a few hours at night, trying to catch up during stopovers in Paris and Nice. He found himself dozing during the day, helped by the rhythm of the wheels on the tracks. The thought of a proper, comfortable hotel bed preceded by a long hot bath made him feel very happy. Time had passed slowly but he had not been bored. He had found time to revise the manuscript of his paper, Psychiatric Implications of Tics and Obsessive Thoughts, for presentation at the World Congress of Psychiatry on Tuesday morning. His interest in these disorders had developed after he had seen patients in Toronto with what had now become known as the Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. He was coming to Rome primarily to present the findings of a personal study of twenty such patients who had shown strong obsessive impulses as well as compulsions to perform activities independent of their will.

Although the patients easily recognized these unnatural habits and phobias they found it very difficult to change. In his hands the disorder seemed refractory to treatment and in some cases terminated in psychosis. He had also worked on one of his hobbies: creating new palindromes but he had composed only a few. He had created one this morning while waiting for the dining car to open. It seemed to fit the occasion: Roma te ecce et amor (Rome we behold and love). He had never tried a Latin palindrome before.

Passing through France and now Italy, he had time to think about the current political scene in Europe. Not being political by nature, while living in Canada he had paid only scant attention to events that were unfolding in Europe since the end of the war in 1918, but he was now travelling through two countries which, like many of their neighbours, had been seriously wounded by that war. He had a sense that the optimism he and many of his friends at home had shared with most of the free world after the war ended was in danger of vanishing amidst emerging cynicism. He had read that Canada had lost more than 68,000 enlisted people in The Great War, with 24,000 casualties in one battle alone. The battle of the Somme had been a slaughter. The British army, which was part of the Allied forces, in the first day of battle had suffered 50,000 casualties, either killed, wounded or missing. Italy, an ally, had lost more than a million and as many had been wounded. German losses had also been staggering. The war left many ex-servicemen unemployed and Canada was no exception.

Back home, demobilized war veterans could be seen lining the streets of Toronto and other Canadian cities holding placards with messages such as: ‘CONDEMNED TO STARVE IN A LAND OF PLENTY’, ‘WE WANT WORK AND WAGES’, and ‘SINGLE, UNEMPLOYED EX-SERVICE MEN: NO PLACE TO EAT. WHY?’

Newspapers were reporting an obvious military build-up in Germany, progressing at a worrisome rate despite that country’s obligations outlined in peace treaties including the one signed in the palace at Versailles. Adolf Hitler’s popularity in Germany was on the rise fuelled by his attempts to free the German people from the yolk of humiliation after their defeat in the war; from the constraints of the Treaty of Versailles, and supposed exploitation by minorities, including Communists and Jews. By promising a form of biological utopia, free of racial diversity, Hitler’s party had the strong backing of many ethnic Germans and seemed likely to assume control of the government in the next elections.

Before leaving Toronto, he had re-read Erich Maria Remarque’s classic novel of that war, All Quiet on the Western Front. The author had assumed a pseudonym after the death of his mother, whose name was Maria—so Paul became Maria and the family name, formerly Remark had become Remarque. The author had been conscripted to the German army in 1916 and after being hit by shrapnel while rescuing a wounded comrade, he spent time in a German field hospital. He tried teaching school after the war, eventually becoming a writer as well as a militant pacifist. All Quiet on the Westenz Front was about the horrors of war as experienced by soldiers in the trenches. Every soldier believes in chance and trusts his luck, the author said later. In 1919, completely disillusioned, he renounced his medals, including the Iron Cross, and other decorations.

Published in 1929, the book was later denounced by Hitler as anti-German. Through this novel, Remarque had become a spokesman for a generation which-having escaped the bullets-was nevertheless destroyed by the war. In a similar way, Christopher, the young English officer in Rebecca West’s The Return of the Soldier, arrived home from the war suffering from amnesia and shell shock.

Flemming had heard that Italy, like Germany, was also in trouble. It had found itself deeply in debt after the war and had soon become ungovernable. There was great resentment that the country—which had sided with the Allies against Germany and had expected more from the Treaty of Versailles, especially territorial gains—had been rewarded with so little. The Italians blamed the American president Woodrow Wilson. Struggles between right- and left-wing extremists had lead to civil war in some Italian cities. The rise of Benito Mussolini, and his Fascist party’s assumption of power ten years ago was not a complete or universally accepted solution to the country’s financial and economic chaos. Inflation was high, unemployment rates were rising, wages were low; but at the same time considerable order was said to exist.

He had heard that the trains in Italy were running efficiently and usually, but not always, on time. This train was already an hour late. He found the French and Italian railway personnel were generally pleasant, courteous and obliging. Someone in Canada had told him that steady employment in Italy could be assured as long as one carried a membership card of the Fascist party. The dining car meals were tasty. French and Italian wines had assumed a certain quality again. Prices for travel and commodities were very reasonable, with exchange rates advantageous to a Canadian traveller. The porter on the Italian segment of his trip, whom he had begun to call Gino, had been very friendly and attentive although he spoke very little English.

The chairman of the organizing committee of the World Congress of Psychiatry had sent a reassuring letter to members of the psychiatric community months before Flemming left Canada, painting his country as an orderly, liberal society, free of totalitarianism and having a progressive view of the management of psychiatric illness. Some recent Italian immigrants to Canada that he had met in Toronto had been less optimistic about the course of their native country’s government’s plans.

One of the doctors he had met at a local hospital had described the Italian medical community as generally disgruntled. Life in medical practice, once a dream, could often be a nightmare. Compulsory membership in the Fascist party was being considered for medical doctors. Another friend had suggested that Mussolini himself might be a suitable case for psychiatric analysis. Il Duce (The Duke) was authoritarian, vain and known to be a philanderer. It was well-known that he had a mistress. Others had suggested that leisure time for the ordinary Italian worker was under state control primarily to avoid useless and possibly harmful freedom of thought. Recreational pastimes were encouraged, athletic and sport societies flourished, as did choral societies, bands and night schools.

Although Flemming had met a few continental psychiatrists en route to Rome, none seemed interested in discussing politics. Other travellers he met on the train viewed him with interest, and without obvious concern that he and his companion were English-speaking foreigners in their midst.

The journey had been made more interesting than Flemming had imagined it would be as he had met a fellow traveller-Simon Williams-before they had arrived at the Channel terminal, and as they prepared to leave on the ferry to France on Tuesday. They had common interests and soon established a friendly relationship. Charles, scrutinizing his new acquaintance, noted he was short, lean and wiry—likely ten years younger than he—maybe in his mid-forties, judging from his dark hair with lack of grey and his athletic physique. His distinguishing features were thick glasses, a well-trimmed beard, a Welsh accent, a baggy, blue wool sweater and a limp, which seemed to favour his left leg. His new friend seemed greatly relieved that the short train trip from London to Dover had come to an end and was not hesitant to talk about what had bothered him on the train. Since his war experience in Italy in the Caporetto campaign in the winter of 1916, Simon had avoided train travel as much as possible. His head injury from a stray bullet had left him with insomnia, headaches and a weak leg. One of the British field doctors had called it shell shock.

The injury had eventually resulted in his being sent back to a Canadian field hospital north of Ypres in Flanders, where minor brain surgery was recommended. This was the field hospital where Captain John McCrea from Guelph, Ontario, was working at the time he wrote In Flanders Fields. Simon was later sent back to Wales, where he spent almost six months at a convalescent hospital outside Swansea. His flashbacks of the shock and horror of combat were blamed on the consequences of psychological trauma. His horror of train travel had also been a curious sequel of this experience, and had remained a problem ever since. The medical explanation was that it was something akin to what was once called railway spine (or more accurately railway mind), a disorder which appeared in epidemic proportions in the late 19th Century, when train travellers developed complaints of mental anguish after experiencing terrifying railway accidents that had not actually resulted in obvious serious physical injury. Headaches, insomnia, anxiety, poor memory, backache, and weakness would plague some of these rail travellers some days after the derailment. Many of the crash victims subsequently engaged in compensation battles with railway companies.

While living in London in 1926, Charles had heard of the British surgeon, John E. Erichsen, who had made a name for himself at about the peak of the epidemic as a result of his interest in the emotional consequences of those accidents. Some began to refer to the problem as Erichsen’s disease. Since such accident victims did not die as a result of the accident there was no validation of Erichsen’s explanatory theory of chronic inflammation of the spinal or meningeal membranes as an explanation for the symptoms.

The problem of shell shock during the war was commonly considered to be the result of an emotional disorder. It had not been restricted to British imperial troops. In Germany it was called war neurosis, and was considered by medical doctors there to be a psychological reaction of frightened and weak-willed or spineless soldiers, who were blind to the national interest and had a selfish desire for compensation or pension. From a psychiatrist’s view, such an array of disabling anxiety symptoms was likely the consequence of a poisoned memory that could persist in the wake of such disasters or as a result of the horror of combat in wartime.

Charles Dickens had been a victim of something akin to railway mind. Always somewhat neurasthenic but having some genuine recurring physical ailments as well, Dickens was returning from France travelling on a train from Folkstone to London on June 19th 1865, with his mistress Ellen Ternan, and her mother when the locomotive derailed near Staplehurst. Ten passengers were killed and some twenty were injured when most of the first class carriages fell into a ravine. Neither Dickens, nor Ternan, nor her mother suffered any serious physical injury, so he was able to attend to some of the more seriously injured passengers, in some cases to no avail. Dickens never got over the shock. and for the rest of his life felt sick and faint when travelling by train. He avoided fast trains, and even at times felt terrified when travelling in hansom cabs through the streets of London. After more of such accidents, public alarm over the hazards of rail travel intensified. Charles had wondered how Simon would cope with the remainder of his train travel to Rome.

He found it curious that he was envious of Simon’s beard. Flemming had grown a beard several times before and liked the change in his appearance, but he had met with opposition from his family who said it made him look old. His wife Anne had disapproved more than others, so he had shaved off his last growth just to please her. Since Anne’s accidental death, he had frequently harboured a wish to grow a beard again.

The memory of Anne in that instant had filled him immediately with that same sense of sadness and emptiness in his chest, as if he had suddenly lost his ability to breath. At moments like this, after many years without her, he had developed what he thought were reliable coping skills to deal with his anxiety, but they sometimes failed. Most of the time his friends would not have noticed his reaction. Months after her death he concluded that he had likely been excessively anxious or perhaps had even dealt with his grief poorly.

Anne had died as a result of a major railway accident. On a night in July 1919, while travelling in a New York Central Railway sleeping car, she had sustained very severe injuries when the train—while stopped at a station—was hit in the rear by another passenger train near Buffalo. The cause was established as brake failure. Eight passengers and several of the train crew were killed, and more than one hundred were injured. Anne had survived for only two days.

Crossing the Atlantic on board the rolling liner—and even for a few days on the French trains—he had forgone shaving, wondering each morning as he gazed in the mirror just how a contemporary grey beard might look after so many years. But he had decided to shave every time after a few days of contemplating his somewhat dishevelled appearance.

Simon Williams’ background was music, which had occupied much of his life except for the period of war service in the British army. He had hoped his studies would lead to a successful career in keyboard performance and teaching, but he had been left with the reminder of his injury: a weak left arm and leg leaving him with a limp, noticeable to others only if he was walking alone or when he was very tired. After the accident he often bumped into the left sides of doorways, and he never fully recovered his facility with the keyboard. For months he was unable to see the left side of the keyboard well, or read the left side of sheet music. It was as if he had been partly blinded by the head injury. The one redeeming feature of his service in Italy was learning a small amount of conversational Italian while resting in a military hospital in the north.

After discharge from the convalescent hospital in Wales, where he had met other soldiers suffering from shell shock, Simon soon discovered that employment opportunities were scarce after the war. He decided to resume his piano studies despite the problem with his vision and his left arm. It meant very hard work and practice, but he graduated from the Royal College of Music in 1923. He knew, however, that he would never have a career as a performer. Job prospects for a musician were poor in Wales, but he had been offered part-time work as music critic for the Cardiff Western Globe newspaper. This position had provided generous exposure to visiting artists and orchestras but a meagre income. Between teaching and writing he was able to travel to many music festivals and recitals in Britain and on the Continent, as his employer usually paid for a substantial part of his travel expenses. Before they had reached Calais, Charles and Simon had established a first-name relationship.

Simon discovered that they shared a common interest in the professional career of an unusual pianist, Vladimir de Pachmann, who had retired eight years ago to live in Rome. Before leaving England on Tuesday, they were surprised and saddened to see an obituary for de Pachmann in the January 10th issue of the London Times, which had included a photograph of the pianist taken from earlier times, seated at his piano, wearing his long grey hair neatly groomed, his stubby hands caressing the keys. The obituary had encapsulated many of the elements of the pianist’s unusual life and career. He was eighty-four years old when he died of pneumonia in Rome on January 6th, after a long illness, suspected to have been prostate cancer. He had been living in retirement as an Italian citizen in Rome since 1925, with his long-time personal secretary.

When the subject of de Pachmann’s death had come up in their conversation later in the ferry lounge, Charles and Simon discovered they had both been present at his last London recital at the Royal Albert Hall on October 21st in 1925. Charles had been working in London in 1925 and 1926 while on a sabbatical from the University of Toronto. That final recital was not one that demonstrated anywhere near the quality of piano playing for which de Pachmann had once been known. The conclusion of the critics was that he was much too old to be playing publicly at the age of seventy-eight, after such a long, successful career.

Vladimir de Pachmann had crossed the Atlantic to the USA for the first time in 1890, accompanied by his young wife, the former Marguerite Okey, herself an accomplished professional pianist. Charles, then not yet a teenager, had not heard their New York City recitals, but he and his mother, who had been visiting relatives in Boston, were able to find tickets for two of the concerts in that city a week later. Charles had developed an interest in keyboard music from his music teacher. They had especially enjoyed the performance and the stage manner of Marguerite de Pachmann, as had the Boston critics, so he was surprised to find no reference to her in the obituary. She was of course now his former wife, as they had divorced in 1895. It was during a later visit to Boston in 1912 that Charles had the good fortune to meet Anne, who would eventually join him in Toronto in 1915, but for much too brief a time as his wife.

Marguerite and de Pachmann had divorced after eleven years of marriage. She settled in Paris with their two sons and later married a French barrister, Fernand Labori, famous for his contribution to the defence of Captain Dreyfus. It was in Paris that she had established the Pachmann Piano School. Although Labori had died in March 1917—after a long illness his obituary had said — she had remained in that city, and had continued to teach, but had no longer given recitals. Her last recital in London was advertised using her former name, Marguerite de Pachmann.

That was on May 15th 1930 at the Aeolian Hall. Before leaving Canada, Charles had thought it might be possible to visit the ageing de Pachmann while he was in Rome, even though he had never had an opportunity to speak to the pianist on any of the occasions where he had heard him play, nor had he ever met his wife Maggie, as she was usually called. He had heard from friends in Nova Scotia that Maggie’s parents and two of her sisters had emigrated to Canada in the late 1890s, settling in Port Williams, a farming town in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. For years Charles had been curious about the circumstances surrounding the failed marriage as well as the nature of de Pachmann’s odd behaviour on- and off-stage. The de Pachmann marriage was likely to have been troubled by his professional jealousy that was often apparent when they were sharing the stage, and when he was in the audience at her solo recitals. The marriage of two professional artists could be a problem and often lead to divorce, as was the case of the pianist Sophie Menter and the cellist David Popper. Popper’s jealousy was such that he could be seen standing in the wings during her recitals - keeping a record of the number of her encores.

Several months before leaving Toronto on this journey, Charles had written a letter of introduction to Francesco Pallottelli—de Pachmann’s secretary in Rome—signifying his interest in his aging companion’s life and career, and to tell him that he had already written a significant amount towards an unauthorized de Pachmann biography. Charles’ plan had been to concentrate on the pianist’s interesting stage career, writing not as a musicologist but from a medical and psychiatric perspective. He had earlier negotiated with a Canadian publisher to review the first draft of the manuscript, but it had been rejected without a convincing explanation. The subject of the book was considered of little interest, and it would not likely sell except to a few musicians or music libraries.

From the beginning, when he was researching details for the book, even Anne had expressed reservations. Why would readers be interested in the career of a cranky and somewhat flawed Ukrainian pianist, who lost his wife to a prominent Parisian attorney? she asked him one morning over breakfast. Fair question, he replied. But he had nevertheless pressed on with his writing in his spare time. He had decided to bring the almost complete manuscript to Rome so that some biographic details could be clarified, and with a view to obtaining de Pachmann’s endorsement of the project. There had been hints that since retiring, the pianist had been writing his own memoirs. His secretary Pallottelli had already written and published a brief biography of de Pachmann in 1916. It was in Italian and Charles had never seen it. It was now out of print but he had been told a new up-to-date edition was to be published soon.

An Italian friend in Toronto, who had a relative living in Rome, had promised to arrange for a copy of the new edition to be left at his hotel in Rome, if it had been published by then. What Charles had heard about the earlier brief biography had reinforced his opinion that the pianist had suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder similar to the patients he had studied in Toronto. Charles had not received any feedback to his letter but still hoped that notes from the pianist’s memoirs might be made available for his examination. He was told by someone that the failing health of the elderly pianist had precluded any significant personal writing during the past year.

Although he was a good sailor, Charles had decided to avoid food on the English Channel crossing and to spend most of the time on deck. He had eventually sought refuge in the ferry lounge, where he suspected the coffee would be weak and the atmosphere smoky. Searching for a familiar face, he had noticed Simon Williams engaged in conversation with another couple. He was introduced to Richard and Mona Connelly, travelling from Dublin to Paris, who had also just heard of de Pachmann’s death. Mona was absorbed in reading the Times obituary. He joined the trio at their table, ordered coffee and soon found himself exchanging memories and anecdotes of the recently deceased pianist.

Whoever wrote the obituary summed it up exactly, suggested Simon, his eccentricities and antics did obscure much of his great artistry. But I disagree that these unfortunate characteristics were of little consequence. They may have seemed inconsequential to him and some critics but the world of music critics and his professional colleagues alike thought otherwise.

I have read a lot about his odd stage behaviour and have a plausible explanation which I can discuss with you later, replied Charles. Over several years, I have been working on a short biography of the pianist that I had intended to show to de Pachmann—regrettably that will no longer be possible. On Tuesday, I am presenting a paper at the International Congress of Psychiatry on a psychiatric condition that just might fit our recently deceased pianist. I know a lot of his fans will be mourning his passing and I am sorry I will not be able to meet the old man.

Mona Connelly, having just completed reading the obituary, turned to Simon and expressed a theory that professional music critics in many cities were too often inclined to find fault with musical performances and new music. Their music reviews are often unsigned which in my view allows them to hide their identity. You are a critic—do you agree that critical reviews should not be anonymous?

Simon paused before he replied. "Well, I have read and collected many British newspaper concert and recital reviews over the years and they are usually unsigned. Being a freelance critic, I like my editors to credit me with my reviews. Of course anyone who reads the same local or national newspapers with regularity should be able to identify the particular critic based on the writing style, or tastes in composers and individual biases. As a music critic, I am always aware of the influence of the more notorious of our profession. James William Davison of the Times is a good example. If he had still been around—I think he died in 1885—he would have had a field day with Pachmann (he used the shortened version of the pianists’ name), especially if he devoted whole programs to Chopin, whose music Davison did not always greatly admire."

Was he the critic who said that the entire works of Chopin present a motley surface of ranting hyperbole and excruciating cacophony’?"

That’s right, replied Simon.

Simon was travelling to Rome as well, on an assignment for The Musical Muse, a monthly magazine published in Wales. Simon had explained that the newly-appointed editor had seen fit to virtually adopt a young Polish pianist, Agnieszka Lipska, as he was convinced that she would eventually become the reigning queen of Chopin interpretation and a worthy successor to de Pachmann, as the authority in Chopin performance practice.

I was pleased when my editor had a change of plans at the last moment and asked me to go to Rome in his stead. Have either of you heard of Agnieszka Lipska? he asked. He seemed surprised when all three shook their heads.

"I heard her give a recital last Spring in Vienna, which was where we met. She had also made some recordings of several Chopin works for a Polish label in Kraków, which I later had an opportunity to review along with some of her earlier recording of the Mazurkas. So I was not a bit reluctant to accept Nigel Billinghurst’s offer to send me to review these Rome recitals. As well as being a great pianist, she is also an exceptionally beautiful woman. She will be playing on Saturday afternoon at the Reale Academia Filarmonica Romana and in the evening at a private reception in the home of the Polish ambassador or I should say the embassy. I have to work out how I will manage to get an invitation to the second recital but Agnieszka’s brother, Alexei, will likely be able to arrange something. I met him in Vienna as he frequently travels with his sister, playing the role of unofficial manager and guide even though he is a part time writer too."

How did you rate her gramophone recordings? Charles asked.

As you might expect, a studio sound can be deceptive and be made to seem better than a live concert recording, but my impression was that her two records failed to transmit the magic I sensed at the Vienna concerts even considering the sounds of coughing from the audience. The flu season had been in full swing at the time. The programmes for the recordings and the recital were not the same of course. A friend suggested to me later that, because she is virtually blind, that fact may have added a new dimension to those concerts. That may have been so for the audience but not for me. I have heard other blind keyboard artists perform and have not felt that it was so important. The world of organists has included many who were blind; some are still alive and actively performing. The organist of a local church near my home in Cardiff is an excellent musician and has very poor vision. Excellent vision has never been a prerequisite for virtuoso keyboard talent. One advantage of a studio recording is that it facilitates the performer’s focus on the music alone, allowing the removal of a barrier that sometimes seems to exist between the audience and the performer.

Charles was very curious to hear more details of the nature of this young pianist’s blindness. as he had once presented a paper called The Blind Musician to the Ontario History of Medicine Society. He had read, in researching this lecture, that being blind seemed to heighten the sense of hearing in such musicians. He would have discussed Lipska’s loss of vision further, but Simon had just looked at his watch and noted that the ferry would likely be approaching the harbour of Calais. In fact, some of the lounge crowd had already begun to move out onto the decks for a view of the French coastline. He felt he needed fresh air to clear his head after sitting in the smoky lounge. He could also feel the effects of the mediocre coffee.

I suggest we continue this conversation on the train as I am very interested in your research, suggested Simon as they walked together towards the lower deck. Are you taking the train all the way to Rome?

Yes I am. After a tedious and rough Atlantic crossing earlier this month and this almost equally nauseating crossing, I think the train will be my salvation.

Well you know how I feel about trains, Simon replied, as he set off to find his luggage.

Charles’ Atlantic crossing on the Canadian Pacific liner SS Montrose from Halifax in late December had been an unusually stormy one. The ship had left port on December 24th for Southampton. After arriving in England, he had read in a newspaper that a fishing trawler from Aberdeen had recently been wrecked when it struck rocks at Hole Head in the stormy seas with the loss of nine lives. A passenger liner had also been lost to fire in the Channel.

The boredom of the Atlantic crossing was helped greatly by a brief but exciting affair with a Norwegian wireless operator named Lisa Johansen from Bergen, with whom Charles had shared a dining table every evening, and, before long, her bed. It had been his first romance since Anne had died. Lisa was very keen and knowledgeable about the music of Edvard Grieg, and they had spent hours in bed discussing—amongst other matters—the composer’s career and his poor health towards the end of his life.

What are your plans? he asked Simon as they prepared to step ashore.

Apart from spending tonight in Paris, which is essential for us both to make train connections tomorrow, I am spending a day in Nice at the local Academy of Music with a sleepover there on Wednesday night but my schedule allows me to pick up another train to Milan the next day, with a sleeper from there in the evening. Would you be interested in exploring Nice while I am attending my meetings?

I don’t mind changing my plans to suit yours, if you think that would be appropriate, Simon eagerly replied.

I have friends in Nice with whom I worked with several years ago in our department in Toronto. Hopefully, they will not be too busy to see me and there should be no problem finding accommodation. I have a reservation at the Hotel Splendide Royal on Via Vittorio Venito in Rome. Where are you staying? Charles asked.

I don’t know the name of the street but my hotel is the ... Hotel Bernine Bristol, Simon replied, after spending several minutes thumbing through a small black diary to find the name. Charles thought he remembered it. I think it’s on Via Barberini, which is not far from where I am staying. He had planned his travels well in advance, and felt some flexibility in changing his travel schedule. He would have to rebook a sleeper from Milan but it should not be a problem. The congress was starting over the weekend and he had already been assured that his hotel accommodation in Rome was secure even if he were tempted to take short diversions along the way.

Charles thought he would enjoy meeting the young, blind pianist. Simon had predicted that he would agree with him that she was likely the best Chopin interpreter of today, certainly in Europe. If you have time to come to both the recitals I can see if it is possible to get you tickets for Sunday afternoon and an invitation for the evening recital too, he suggested. You can see for yourself how beautiful she is. I know where Agnieszka and Alexei will be staying in Rome. Being a doctor you are probably curious about the cause of her blindness but I cannot help you. I have no idea about that. She might be willing to talk to you about it.

The recitals sounded like a great idea. Charles had just spent a week in London after his Atlantic journey, and had gone to two concerts including one that featured the music of Handel, with extracts from Messiah, as well as a performance of one of his organ concertos. The night before he had heard the brilliant pianist Frederic Lamond play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 at a Promenade Concert at the Queen’s Hall. On the same program he heard for the first time the symphonic poem, Tabiola, by Sibelius, whose music he had just begun to appreciate. The program notes said that the composer’s music had caught on in England in the early 20th Century, first with his early symphonies and in 1907 with his violin concerto. The composer had been invited to England to conduct on three occasions, between 1905 and 1912. Initially, audiences had difficulty with the idiom, but by the 1930s Sibelius had become a popular composer in Britain.

The train journey from Calais to Paris had been very enjoyable as they had settled in a compartment with no other travellers, and had spent several hours discussing the world of music, music criticism and the maladies of musicians. The health of musicians and composers had become a hobby for Charles. Simon seemed much less anxious about this aspect of the train trip. Charles had promised to show him his manuscript and collection of de Pachmann reviews he had in his suitcase, once they had settled. His new friend had shown some interest in his comments about the possible explanation for the antics of the odd pianist.

Waking with a start—and briefly blinded by the strong sunshine—he realized he had been dreaming. The train was slowing and had jerked briefly as it approached the station. He gazed out the window; Rome at last! The eternal city—despite its ruins—looked splendid this morning. In one of his dreams since leaving Toronto, Charles had dredged up from his memory what Sigmund Freud had said about Rome, which he had loved to visit. He had compared the ruins of the old city to the human mind. Freud was convinced that nothing that had been formed in the human brain could perish—somehow being permanently preserved—and in suitable circumstances could once more be brought to life if regression could be taken back far enough. He remembered that John Keats had visited Rome and had died there from tuberculosis. Someone had told him that Goya, as a young man, had spent two years taking art lessons in Rome.

Some passengers were already collecting their luggage and had started moving toward the carriage doors. Was it the smell of coal smoke from the locomotive that had begun to infiltrate the train? Or was it another wedge of cheese next door? Thinking of the Canadian winter back in Toronto, Charles had no doubts that he could easily accept the climate of the south of Italy for the next week. Now he must find Simon who had not appeared.

CHAPTER TWO

"De mortuis nil nisi bonum"

(Speak nothing but good of the dead)

Charles had always been sceptical about the details he found in obituaries. Their theme too often seemed to be "de mortuis nil nisi bonum." It was therefore with wary interest that he had read the first of two other tributes to de Pachmann that he and Simon had found at a newspaper stand, prior to embarking on the Dover ferry. Both the Liverpool Post and Scotsman of Edinburgh had noted the pianist’s recent death in Rome. Beginning in 1882, de Pachmann had travelled from London to Edinburgh and Glasgow for recitals and the local reviews had always been highly complimentary.

The Golden Arrow train of the French Northern Railway had already left Calais en route to Paris. Seated comfortably in the dining car with Simon, while awaiting the last dinner course, Charles had been reading A.K. Holland’s comments in the January 9th issue of the Liverpool Post. Simon looked surprisingly relaxed so far—no hint of panic or anything like the way he had felt on the train from London to Dover. Simon now had a travelling companion who shared his interests, and he wanted to chat. Earlier he had volunteered his belief that he might feel better about train travel if he understood the psychodynamics of his anxiety.

The psychiatrists who had treated him in Wales had stressed the benefits of rationalizing the past. Charles’ enjoyment of train travel was well known to his friends and family. Despite his personal tragic loss, he had never avoided train travel, and always felt confident the locomotive engineer would get him safely to his destination. Now he was settled in the dining car prepared to read what the music critic from Liverpool had thought of de Pachmann. Holland had observed the man at first hand on many occasions and had commented how, the eccentricities of his platform manner were a source of diversion to the unthinking and of distraction to others.

Holland had summarized his memories of de Pachmann’s recitals in Liverpool by noting the pianist’s infantile delight in teasing his audience. He would come on, acknowledge the applause, and at once begin to complain about the lights, particularly the light immediately over the piano, which it appeared was insupportable. This by-play would go on for a considerable time, while the old man steadily refused to play, sometimes retiring to the greenroom, where, no doubt, the discussions about the lights were continued. When finally induced to take his seat at the keyboard, he indulged in frequent asides to the audience in his immediate neighbourhood and would even break off in the middle of a group to deliver a speech that was totally inaudible to all but those in the front rows where he appeared to be explaining that he alone possessed the true secret of Chopin’s style.

Holland had heard the de Pachmann performances of later years and seemed surprisingly tolerant of his odd stage behaviour:

"Whether these things were encouraged as being good showmanship or tolerated as the vagaries of genius is immaterial but it would be a pity if they were allowed to colour the memory of one who was unquestionably an exquisite artist. There was always sheer beauty of sound and loveliness of detail in the