"The Maestro was in a state of visible disorder. His face was livid, flushed almost purple. His hair, normally so immaculate, combed carefully left to right across his distinguished bald patch, the touches of grey at the temples artfully retouched with a patent preparation I ordered in batches from a pharmacy in the Rue Gît-le-Coeur, was standing up from his scalp in little tufts, as if he had been tearing at it, which in retrospect I suppose was precisely the case. His shirt had come untucked from his trousers, a sight I found unaccountably distressing, a white broadcloth flap hanging down beneath his travelling jacket like a flag of surrender."
Hari Kunzru, “The Maestro’s Loss”
