In October 2000, I had the pleasure of traveling to Madrid to deliver a series of eight lectures on neurology. The setting was magnificent - historic architecture, golden autumn light, and the hum of intellectual exchange echoing through the halls.
It was one of those rare conferences where everything aligned: the science was stimulating, the company distinguished, and the setting magical.
Among the speakers was a colleague from my own university, UC Davis. Sharing the stage with him, and with other luminaries in the field, was a privilege. But it’s not the lectures that I remember most vividly. It’s a pen.
As a token of appreciation, the organizers presented each speaker with a gift: a Mont Blanc fountain pen, nestled in a small black box. Elegant and unassuming, yet brimming with significance.
For me, a lifelong lover of fountain pens, it was the perfect gesture. I admired its weight in my hand and the promise of ink flowing like thought onto paper. It was, quite simply, a treasure.
That evening, over dinner, I asked my UC Davis colleague whether he’d looked at his gift. He nodded and said, “Yes, it was a pen. I tried to open it to see where the ink cartridges go. But it broke. I must’ve applied too much pressure.”
I froze. Broke?
I gently explained that this wasn’t a cartridge pen. It required bottled ink, drawn up through a piston or converter mechanism.
“Where’s the pen now?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.
“In the trash can in my room,” he said, nonchalantly.
I all but begged him to retrieve it. He did. The pen was, indeed, smashed beyond what I thought repairable. The elegant nib bent. The body cracked. A once-beautiful instrument, now in ruins.
But I couldn’t bring myself to let it go.
Once home, I carefully packed the shattered pieces and mailed them to Mont Blanc’s service center in France. I explained what had happened and asked, perhaps too hopefully, if it might be repaired.
Weeks passed. Then months. I forgot about the pen.
Then one day, a small brown-paper package arrived. Inside was the pen - fully restored. No invoice. Just a handwritten letter.
The letter was from the person who had repaired the pen. It was written in delicate script, perhaps even with a fountain pen of their own.
They spoke of the painstaking process of bringing it back to life, the uniqueness of every Mont Blanc pen, and how such instruments should be treated with reverence and care.
The emotion poured off the page. It was a love letter! I could almost see the tear stains smudging the ink.
To this day, that letter has stayed with me as much as the pen has. It reminded me that beauty, when broken, can be mended. That care is an art. And that sometimes, stories travel farther than lectures ever will.
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