TranscriptFinished Mozart in Vienna. It straightened out a great many overromaticised [sic] conceptions & interpretations, including Mozart’s supposed “pauper’s” funeral.
In evening, at 7.30, I called Covington to ask Bunt what would be a good time for us to come down & see her & Walker, whose condition has been worsening. Leroy answered – at Walker’s bedside; made it clear that Walker was in fact dying. Then Walker himself got on the phone. “Hello, Shelby. I just wanted to say goodbye. Ive got an hour, an hour & a quarter. Goodbye.” I told him he had been the closest I ever came to having a brother, & he only said again, “Goodbye.” That was that. It came as a great shock to me. I’d known of course that the cancer was killing him, but not that the end was so close. I shed my first tears in many years. |