A mushroom anyone?

…everybody was possessed by the Russian passion for gathering mushrooms.  Rivalries ran high, mushrooms were counted and compared, their beauty was discussed.  Rachmaninoff was an early riser and often went alone for a walk in the woods.  He used to return contented and start teasing (he was a great teaser).  One day he badgered us with: “Oh, you don’t know how to find the mushrooms.  Look.  A whole meadow, right here, round the corner, next to the house, and you missed them all.  And I counted twenty.”

A gay crowd rushed out to the meadow, and actually it was covered with mushrooms.  But on touching them we discovered that they were not growing, but had merely been tucked into the moss and grass.  Rachmaninoff had picked them in the woods while everybody was still asleep, had stuck them in, and now teased everybody with a contended smile…

Swann.  Cited in: Bertenssom, Sergei & Leyda, Jay (2001) Sergei Rachmaninoff: A Lifetime in music.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, p.268.

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