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as well as he played the piano? “And you must bear in mind that most pianists would rather cut off one another’s hands than pass along inspiration through them, though you should feel free to hold mine for as long as you like.”
    â€œLet me hold the other one,” said the young man in the towel.
    â€œAre you a pianist too?” asked Moscheles.
    â€œI’m a law student.”
    â€œOh, my,” said Moscheles. “In that case I think I’d best hide both my hands.” He winked at Robert before withdrawing his right hand from Robert’s grasp.
    â€œI am a pianist,” said Robert.
    â€œI could tell,” said Moscheles.
    â€œFrom my hands?” asked Robert.
    â€œNo. I could feel you listening to me secretly as I played.”
    â€œYou could?”
    â€œAbsolutely.”
    â€œTruly?” Robert could not believe he was doubting Moscheles. It was like telling a god you mistrusted his powers.
    â€œWhat about the Clementi?” said Moscheles. “Did it not remind you of something else?”
    â€œYes!”
    â€œAha! And do you know what it was?”
    Robert shook his head.
    â€œLet me give you a hint.” Moscheles put his hand on Robert’s shoulder and drew him away from the young man in the towel, but the young man followed them step for step.
    â€œClementi played that same sonata—the B-flat—in a famous duel. Remember what I told you about pianists wanting to cut off one another’s hands. It never goes quite that far, thank God, but we are always dueling with one another. We meet like gladiators, either in person, in someone’s salon where the spectators scream for us to pour out our music like so much blood, or in the press, where we put our reputations in the hands of those whose hands can no more play the piano than they can dress a grouse. It is that way between Johann Nepomuk Hummel and me in Vienna. And if you know anything about Hummel, you know he thinks he has revolutionized the playing of the piano by insisting that trills be commenced on the primary note and not on the note half a step above, which, if you’ve ever tried it, has the same effect on music as ironing her hair does for a woman—it removes the frisson , as it were.”
    Frisson was perhaps the wrong word to use around the young man with the towel, though Robert had studied enough French, what with his dear father’s insistence on the primacy of language, to appreciate the pun Moscheles was making. However, at the very pronunciation of the word frisson , the young man began to shudder once again. And it was not long before the shudders turned to twitches, the twitches to spasms, the spasms to ictuses, the ictuses to throes, until finally his entire body was once again involved in a disturbing convulsion that carried him dancing off back toward the double doors and the bubbling baths whence he had arrived.
    Herr Moscheles shook his head sadly at his departing admirer and said, “So much for the curative powers of music. Or at least its lasting effects. Now, where were we?”
    It was a moment before Robert could take his eyes from the poor dancing man, who was maintaining, Robert realized, the rhythm of the last of the “Alexander’s March” variations. “Duels,” he answered finally, as he realized that he and Moscheles were now surrounded by all the people who had apparently been afraid to approach so long as the St. Vitus dancer was in close attendance.
    â€œAh, yes,” said Moscheles, ignoring the others and looking straight down at Robert. “I was about to ask you if you knew just who it was Clementi was dueling with when he played the B-flat Sonata. Answer that and you will be a long way toward knowing of what, indeed, that sonata reminds you. Here, I’ll give you a hint: The duel took place in 1780.”
    â€œThat’s a hint?”
    Moscheles put his chin in his hand, which struck Robert as a