[..]

Suddenly the doorbell rang. An elderly and rather agitated woman stood in the doorway. Dispensing almost entirely with the niceties of polite conversation, she made it clear that there was to be no more rattling of the ivories, because she wanted to have her afternoon nap in peace. I managed to calm her down, not without difficulty, and she duly left. When I went back in to where Richter was, he asked immediately: "Sto? Sto?" (We communicated in the curious mixture of Russian and German he seemed to find most comfortable). "Nyevazmozhno igraty", I answered. What then took place seems unbelievable even now. Richter began swearing loudly and flung his spectacles onto the floor (my mother, who was also there, still has a piece of the frame), where of course they smashed to smithereens (Bruno kept finding bits of glass for months afterwards). Then he ran out. By the time we had recovered from the shock of this, he had disappeared.
Which was all very well, but we had to rehearse; we were not yet ready for our performance. I thought I would find him in his hotel that evening—he always stayed at the George V, the best hotel in Paris—but evening came and he was still nowhere to be found. By then, of course, it was not only me who was looking for him; his agent, his doctor and a considerable crowd of admirers were all concerned as to his whereabouts. At the reception they said he hadn't been seen since the night before. We were at a loss. What could we possibly do? Added to that, the Metro had shut down and there were no longer any buses running, so it was about 3 a.m. before I managed to get home. The following day, about midday, the telephone rang. It was the Maestro in person. He said we really must rehearse that afternoon; and that I really must go and see the show at the Moulin Rouge if I possibly could. He hadn't had such a good time in ages.

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