And so, there I was aline in the artists' room. From the Small Hall floated in snatches of rolling thunder from the Liszt concerto, being played, so it seemed to me, as brilliantly as one would expect by Zelikman. The Liszt sore lay on the table, and to kill time I leafed through the pages and from the passages I could follow the progress of the work.

he final page was drowned by applause in the hall. Then a noise erupted in the corridor seperating the artists' room from the hall and there was the sound of people coming out: Zelikman had finished. I opened the door and, seeing Zelikman, thrust out my hand.

'Congratulations, it sounded wonderful, as far as I could hear from in here.'

The response was an outburst of despair. I concluded this must be from an excess of self-criticism and anxiety about the outcome of the contest. The corridor was filled with people who had come running out of the hall. This annoyed me, since there was nowhere I could go to compose myself before going on stage. Khariton came up to me and said, 'I congratulate you!'

'What on?'

'Your main rival is out of the running.'

'?'

'Zelikman came to grief in five places, got lose and smudged the whole of the end of the concerto.'