The first week in September Mom and I took a bus up Broadway and then walked a couple of blocks over to meet Mr. Geisler in his studio on the upper West Side. Since he'd agreed to take me as a pupil on Mr. Capianelli's recommendation, I guess I expected him to be like Mr. Capianelli. Not in appearance, of course, but in directing most of his talk to Mom, as though they were conspirators who between them would see I benefited from my lessons.

The man who greeted us, violin in hand, was seventy or maybe even eighty. White haired and welcoming, he made it seem like meeting me was the best thing he had going all day. He was nice to Mom, too, but he made it clear that I was the one he'd been waiting for.

"So," he said, "so, my old pupil has sent me his best pupil. Come, let's make some music."

During that first lesson, that's all we did. Mr. Geisler and I played together moving from one piece to another as I tried to match my playing to his. Somehow he knew what music would be in my repertoire, so I never had to say stop, I don't know that.

I played while listening to our paired violins and watching his face. Occasionally I'd see his eyebrows twitch, and then I'd hear why and make an adjustment. And then the twitching would stop and his eyes would twinkle. Once the twitching got so furious before I could figure out the reason for it that I burst out laughing and lost my place altogether.

When the doorbell announced his next student, I think Mr. Geisler hated ending my lesson as much as I did.

"Thank you," I told him. "Thank you very much."

Mom, whom I'd pretty much forgotten, asked somewhat stiffly, "Have you an assignment for Tessie?"

"I suppose I should," Mr. Geisler said, and I really do think his eyes twinkled at Mom. "Maybe ... Here."

He took my right hand, which still held my violin bow, and nudged my fingers into a different position. Gently molding the way my hand was arched, he said, "Now that you're playing a full-size instrument, you might give this grip a try. Work on it, and then next time we can decide if it's an improvement."

The new bow grip led to days of bad playing It felt awkward to me, and the sounds that came from my violin were so disappointing that I was sure I was doing something wrong Mom could hear I'd regressed, too, and she moved about our apartment with her lips pressed together.

And then, at the end of a morning I'd spent frustrated and half-panicked at hearing myself play worse and worse, the mail brought a card from Mr. Geisler It showed a cartoonish robin fighting to pull an impossibly long worm from the ground. The caption underneath said, "Sometimes the hardest struggle comes just before success."

I couldn't believe it. Mr. Geisler knew what a hard time I was having? He knew how I felt?

I went back to my practicing determined to keep trying, and, sure enough, late that afternoon I was rewarded with a tone so light and sweet, so crystal-edged, that I knew I was doing what Mr. Geisler wanted me to. And I knew why.