Kalantarova asked me to go for a lesson with Yesipova in the morning. I practised the Mozart Variations and took them along. Anna Nikolayevna has recovered some of her energy, but not to be compared with how she had been formerly: she has lost weight and become somehow wrinkled. She prescribed such a slow tempo for the Variations that I despaired, and there was a long discussion about my idea of playing piano and with very few accents, in the end making me play forte and strongly accented. I was disappointed. Then she asked me to play my Etude No. 3, which went with a swing, at which she smiled and said, 'Reminds me of cats scratching their claws!'