Look for the connection between MIND, BRAIN and BODY in the protagonists.

EDWARD

Edward is a balanced person. He's an intelligent man and he has a good level of culture: he's able to process personal thoughts and ideas, leaving apart from those of his teachers (chapter1, page 13).

He's also able to conciliate his love for Florence and his physical desire during their engagement, without hurting her will.

FLORENCE

Florence's relation between feelings, brain and body is more complex than Edward's . Her mind and unconscious create a sort of barrier to her sexual sensations. The reader can make hypotesis and connect her difficulty to the trauma she suffered from his father when she was a child.

On the contrary, she finds a space in which she is very confident: in playing the violin she's perfectly able to co-ordinate the three elements: brain in studying and leading the quartet, mind and feelings in musical choices, body in the act of playing.