In 1931, Robert Frobisher writes a letter to Rufus Sixsmith. He describes a dream in which he vandalizes a china shop, but the destruction sounds to him like a symphony. On waking from the dream, he was forced to flee his hotel room as he couldn’t afford to pay. Rather than ask his father for money, Frobisher plans to seek out a “reclusive English composer” (45) named Vyvyan Ayrs and offer to become his amanuensis. In the musical world, an amanuensis functions as an assistant, transcribing the notation as the composer dictates it. Frobisher knows that Sixsmith would reluctantly approve, which is why he loves him. Frobisher travels from England to Belgium aboard a ship named Kentish Queen. During the voyage, he refuses a job offer and has sex with a “scrawny but inventive” (46) boat steward. In Belgium, Frobisher travels to Bruges through the same countryside where his brother Adrian was killed in World War I. He seeks out Ayrs’s chateau. There, he meets Ayrs and his family: Jocasta van Outryve de Crommelynck, his “coolly courteous” wife, and Eva, their daughter. Ayrs agrees to let Frobisher audition to be his amanuensis.

Frobisher asks Sixsmith to stop sending telegrams, as “telegrams attract attention” (52).