At eleven o'clock, the Figaro general rehearsal. Saradzhev had meant to come, but evidently overslept after the previous evening's vint. At the start of the rehearsal no one was allowed into the auditorium, but then people were told they could come in as long as they sat no nearer than the tenth row. I was talking to Damskaya, and when the rehearsal began took her to sit with me in the front row. An officious attendant, sticking his nose in where it was not wanted, asked her to leave, but I sent him off with a flea in his ear and he obeyed. The rehearsal went on for five hours because the opera did not go smoothly, which caused Tcherepnin to keep stopping and repeating sections. I listened closely trying to absorb every detail of the mise-en-scène.