He got undressed, put on a nightshirt, and went to the room at the back of the house. When the servant lit the gas lamp in the room, Pestana smiled and nodded his heartfelt greetings to the ten or so portraits hanging on the wall. Only one was an oil painting; it was a portrait of the priest who had raised him, taught him Latin and music, and who, if you believed idle gossip, was Pestana’s father. He had certainly left him as an inheritance this old house, along with its bits and pieces of antique furniture, some dating from the reign of Pedro I. The priest had himself composed a couple of motets; he was mad about music, both sacred and profane, and this passion he instilled in the boy, or perhaps transmitted to him by blood, if those wagging tongues were right. However, as you will see, my story does not concern itself with such matters.

The other portraits were of classical composers: Cimarosa, Mozart, Beethoven, Gluck, Bach, Schumann, and three more; some of them were engravings, others lithographs, all badly framed and of differing sizes, but arranged on the wall like saints in a church. The piano was the altar and upon it lay open the evening gospel: a Beethoven sonata.

The coffee arrived; Pestana gulped down the first cup and went over to the piano. He looked up at the portrait of Beethoven and began to play the sonata, as if caught up in a kind of wild ecstasy, but with absolute perfection. He repeated the piece, then paused, stood up, and went to one of the windows. Then he returned to the piano; now it was Mozart’s turn. He picked up a sheet of music and performed it in the same manner, his soul transported to another place. Haydn took him up to midnight and his second cup of coffee.