And so, having parted from [Max] Schmidthof, I went into the class, and the lesson soon began. Akhron was the first to play. He was note-perfect, loud and confident, like a gramophone record, but without much artistic feeling.After him came Zakharov. He played well, and with insight, but all the same something was missing; it all had a kind of smoky miasma over it, and Yesipova was dissatisfied. 'You didn't do much work this summer, did you?' she said. 'On the contrary, I worked very hard ... ' And indeed, Zakharov had made strenuous efforts all summer, but with wretchedly poor results.