The tree kept the harsh reality away. Without the tree (and the illusion) there is no way she stay married to Luis. The tree represented a mental place of refuge which allowed her to hide her feelings from herself. Once the tree is gone, she has to face the truth and leave Luis.
Music at the concert she attends acts as a bridge to connect her to her memories and her feelings. Mozart makes a bridge to her childhood, her fairy tale dreams of romance, and her father's treatment of her. Beethoven puts her in touch with her sexuality in a passage that sounds like a description of increasing sexual pleasure:
And now Beethoven's music begins to stir up the warm waves...Brigida walks across the beach toward the sea now recoiled in the distance, shimmering and calm, but then, the sea swells, slowly grows, comes to meet her, envelops her, and with gentle waves, gradually pushes her, pushes her from behind until it makes her rest her cheek upon the body of the man" (p. 523).
Later in the story "melancholy" Chopin reaches her sadness and disappointment in her husband, her loneliness, and despair: "Chopin and the rain that slips through the leaves of the rubber tree with the noise of a hidden waterfall that seems to drench even the roses on the cretonnes, become intermingled in her agitated nostalgia" (p. 526). The music reaches her in a way that words cannot.
There are several ways music can do this. The tone and color of the music can match the tone and color of a particular emotion. Feelings of being in love, for example, or a remembrance of pain or some intense emotion that lies hidden may "match" the music,...
it's a lot like "smell" when we smell something that is associated with a memory. For example, when I smell a perfume that my mother wore when I was little, it immediately takes me back to that age and the feelings I had at that time. The sense of hearing is just as strong as the sense of smell, maybe stronger for some people. Brigida, for instance, was sensitive to music.
Maybe someday it will be possible to use music to retrain our brains to evoke pleasurable feelings. Music is being used now to help autistic children express themselves, and some music therapists use a combination of music and creative visualization to help people like Brigida get a better self-image. But maybe ordinary people with normal sadness could use music to retrain themselves to be more positive. You could pick a type of music that naturally makes the heart feel light, playful, and carefree and play it at home, in the car, etc. While striving to make your life all that you dream possible, you'd play music that matched what you want to be; that gives you a sense of well-being; that brings feelings of love for yourself and others; and makes you feel serene and confident. Music can help evoke these feelings and help you revisit these feelings every time you play it. Slowly but surely you'd retrain the brain to connect with good feelings through music. This would be a good way for Brigida to help herself, since music affects her so much. She might develop a whole new set of better feelings, and if she felt better about herself, the things that happened to her would be better…
