Vladimir Nabokov. Bachmann
"It happened so suddenly," went Sack's account, "that I could not get there in time to help. I bumped into him when, after the fig— instead of the fugue—he was leaving the stage. I asked him, 'Bachmann, where are you going?' He uttered an obscenity and disappeared into the greenroom."
Then Sack himself walked out on the stage, to a storm of wrath and mirth. He raised his hand, managed to obtain silence, and gave his firm promise that the concert would take place. Upon entering the greenroom he found Bachmann sitting there as though nothing had happened, his lips moving as he read the printed