Part One: Chapters 1 and 2 Summary

Edgar Drake is a piano tuner hired by the British army to travel to Burma to fix Surgeon-Major Carroll's Erard Grand Piano. The journey is long and eventually he reaches Mandalay in northern Burma. Here he meets a Burmese woman called Khin Myo who takes him to Carroll at the fort of Mae Lwin. He fixes the piano, and then becomes enchanted by the idyllic village. He decides to stay for awhile, and begins to develop feelings for Khin Myo, who is in a relationship with Surgeon-Major Carroll. One day Edgar is asked to play the piano for a visiting Shan Prince, and then to accompany Carroll to a meeting in order to establish a peace treaty. Mae Lwin is attacked soon after and Carroll makes Edgar leave with the piano. Edgar is picked up by the...