In the Ballade my performance went all right, but the cellist was inclined to be tentative and at times lagged behind. I heard that Lyapunov spread out his arms in a gesture of disbelief and Blumenfeld occasionally laughed out loud. The audience greeted and listened to us in complete silence - but then there are never more than twenty or thirty people at a chamber music exam. Still I was a little chagrined, however prepared I may have been for a muted response since, strange as it seems to me, the Ballade seems fated not to be understood at first hearing. Our marks were not announced. Mama came to listen, but as she failed to recognize the music of the Ballade, which took palce at a different point in the programme from that stated, and is so short-sighted that she could not see me, she concluded that I had not appeared at all.