"I haven't played the partitas yet, Woodard."
That stopped the cough. Not played them? Then why did he feel—He found himself thinking with curious gentleness of the guests at the hotel who mocked nature with their complaints. And vast as his sudden pity was for them, it was vaster still for himself. But he tried to latch onto one worthwhile thought: I have nothing to fear but fear itself.
"Nineteen and a half minutes." Relentlessly Nodus lowered the arm.
Woodard tried clinging to the worthwhile thought. But it kept shimmering off in the dissolving world. It wouldn't come right. I have nothing to fear but all mankind, he kept hearing.
And maybe it was better that way; at least he knew.
Finally he asked himself: How did I get into this? I who always kept myself to myself to myself to myself.... Oh he was whirling, whirling, and no one could count his r's p.m. ... myself to myself to....
He slumped unconscious in his chair.
Eleven minutes and thirty-one seconds of partitas had elapsed. Nodus so remarked to Russ, who made note.
And the concert continued. But there is small point in detailing Nodus' accounts, as sensibly delivered as before, of the various selections: how he explained his choice of "Bendermeer's Stream" as a follow-up to the partitas; his apologies for the surface scratches that made the Valkyries' ride sound unlubricated; his cautionings about what to look for in the "Romeo and Juliet Overture"; his meticulous timing of these and the other recordings.