The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-03-19
KINGS BOW TYRANNY
CHATTER xxxI

CdARI IEkt AAAl ! Paris was acutely surprised to lind an entirely new and strange Keeling about Kings Row.
 i What held him hereP The hos pital? Was it Drake and Randy? Twas it Dr. Nolan? Was it his memories of his grandmother, of Renee and Tom Carr, and Cassie, and of people like Colonel Skef- Eington? No: he was clearly con- ~inced that 1t was no one of these things, or even all of them. It was something less easy of access, Jess tangible maybe, something that had to do with the early mak- ing of him which, as parent soil, held him fast.
 They had stayed on, those who were here before him. Herr lBerdoff, lonely, perhaps homesick lat times for the idyllic Germany he remembered; Isaac Skeffington, talking of the civilized charm of country life in his Virginia; his pwn great-grandfather Mitchell bred in the fastidious and exact ing life of great family tradition all of them. They stayed on.
 He had had a bad time in Kings Row. Tragedy and disaster came too early. He had been like field of young wheat blown down by spring storms. He had strengthened but slowly. But some how he knew that he was rooted.
 A call from Herr Berdoff begging Paris to see Vera LichinSka, whc had given up her playing and re- turned without warning, began for him another contact with Kings Row tragedy.
 "Her papa says she is crazy" Herr Berdoff said. MT. Lichin- sky pulls his hair, Paris. Vera says she cannot play. Cannot play"
 Paris sat in the little living room above the jewelry shop where the Lichinsky had lived ever since Paris had first known them. vera's fine strong hands lay rather inertly in her lap. It was hard to believe, as she told him her story, that this poised, lovely young woman was the Ecolorless little Vera who used tc slump awkardly along the street with her violin case under her arm.
 q cancelled my tours. I couldn't play" she said. "All at once I seemed to hear myself as if -- as If, I had never heard myself be- fore. I asked myself a question - ;and I couldn't answer 1t and then, I couldn't play any more"
 What was the question you couldn't answer?"
 TT simply asked myself why I played 8 passage just the way l did"
 PaEris waited quietly. And thenS'
 T tried to play again and 1t wouldn't go any way at all. l sounded suddenly like child heginner-no meaning"
 Vera seemed to understand why 1t hAd all happened. AS 8 child she was & prodigy, playing wholly by Intuition, but without real edu- cation. Later, abroad, she tried to fill in her background with reading, theater, exhibitions, things she learned a great artist should have. Yet these arts expressed emotionS-grief, pain, love, sorrow that she had never experienced. She had only been frightened as 8 little girl, much and often, by her family'S sense of inferiority; by her father telling her she must work hard harder harder, or "What will Kings Row say?"
 We passed the asylum once. I remember the barred windows vividly. I asked my father what the place was, and he said 1t was there they locked up crazy people who ain't smart no more" I decided then that I knew why my father was so afraid wouldn't be smart" and do well with my fiddle. Simple in way, isn't itP"
 "Ye-es. Childish fear. But you leVNaed soon cough what "crazy" meant. Wasn't the fear gone them"
 No, Paris. The things I feared are not in Kings Row, but here inside of my own head! I have pTOkeu COIlueCIlOu DeIWeeu 4Ily figers and some hidden source of music which was what had been called my talent. cannot play"
 Do you want to play?"
 "Yes." She spoke the word out of an irnmeasurable despair.
 Tt will come back. You'll have to rest, then begin again, quietly, simply like A child"
 What seem to be most afraid of, Paris, is the asylum here in Kings Row. I've taken room in Carrier street so that I can look right out on 1t all the time I've got to stare it down. stand every night and look at 1t until the lights are out. I can't let 1t get the better of me, ParriS!"
 Paris was disappointed in his efforts to aid Vera. Her family considered her trouble an "un- willingness to go on" and united against her in a kind of inquisi- torial persecution. It was not long before Vera shut herself up for good in the little room on Carrier street.
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