When I finally came to the rotunda I was disappointed to see that the performance was already underway. A pale, heavyset young man wearing a black satin cummerbund was standing on the raised semicircle reserved for performers and singing, his large white hands clasped in front of him. Behind him was an enormous arrangement of red gladiolas in a vase, and behind that was a two-story wall of windows that looked out onto the hospital’s front driveway with its big, glittering fountain. There were no seats, I thought at first, with dismay, but after a moment I saw an unoccupied chair in the middle of a row and inched toward it, navigating my way carefully over pairs of feet and mouthing my apologies. Eventually, I found my way to the empty seat, sat down, and gratefully closed my eyes.

At first, I could hear nothing but the sound of my own pulse, throbbing in my temples. The flurry of activity had aroused me, and I found that my thoughts would not stop agitating themselves, like a dog tightly circling its own bed, never settling. This was particularly galling to me because it had been my intention to immerse myself fully in the music.

The music itself—that was another thing. The sound of the young man’s voice singing something slow and sad came to me as if from very far away—as if I were standing in the depth of a valley, and the singer on the peak of a mountain.

There was another, more immediate noise, much closer, nonmusical. Someone was rustling a newspaper, of all things! Well, what can you expect? I thought. I had seen the audience before I’d shut my eyes: the vacant-eyed sick, the elderly, here and there an aloof, dark-skinned aide.

I redoubled my efforts to concentrate on the music … and was startled, genuinely startled, by the unmistakable sound of applause. My eyes flew open. The young man in the cummerbund was inclining his head in a very slight bow. His singing, I realized, had made almost no impression on me at all. Feebly, and feeling foolish, I joined in the tail end of the applause as the young man took his seat, and a sharp-featured young woman rose to take his place.