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dead transformed, the brushing of the flowers on my undersurface are just misery to me. They make me crazy with misery. To somebody these things may have been given, but that somebody is not me in the red velvet robe. So what am I doing here? Then Lily comes up with the two kids, our twins, twenty-six months old, tender, in their short pants and neat green jerseys, the dark hair brushed down on their foreheads. And here comes Lily with that pure face of hers going to sit for the portrait. And I am standing on one foot in the red velvet robe, heavy, wearing dirty farm boots, those Wellingtons which I favor when at home because they are so easy to put on and take off. She starts to get into the station wagon and I say, "Use the convertible. I am going to Danbury later to look for some stuff, and I need this." My face is black and angry. My gums are aching. The joint is in disorder, but she is going and the kids will be playing indoors at the studio while she sits for the portrait. So she puts them in the back seat of the convertible and drives away. Then I go down to the basement studio and take the fiddle and start warming up on my Sevcik exercises. Ottokar Sevcik invented a technique for the quick and accurate change of position on the violin. The student learns by dragging or sliding his fingers along the strings from first position to third and from third to fifth and from fifth to second, on and on, until the ear and fingers are trained and find the notes with precision. You don't even start with scales, but with phrases, and go up and down the strings, crawling. It is frightful: but Haponyi says it is the only way, this fat Hungarian. He knows about fifty words of English, the main one being "dear." He says, "Dear, take de bow like dis vun, not like dis vun, so. Und so, so, so. Not to kill vid de bow. Make nice. Do not stick. Yo, yo, yo. Seret lek! Nice." And after all, I am a commando, you know. And with these hands I've pushed around the pigs; I've thrown down boars and pinned them and gelded them. So now these same fingers are courting the music of the violin and gripping its neck and toiling up and down on the Sevcik. The noise is like smashing egg crates. Nevertheless, I thought, if I discipline myself eventually the voice of angels may come out. But anyway I didn't hope to perfect myself as an artist. My main purpose was to reach my father by playing on his violin. Down in the basement of the house, I worked very hard as I do at everything. I had felt I was pursuing my father's spirit, whispering, "Oh, Father, Pa. Do you recognize the sounds? This is me, Gene, on your violin, trying to reach you." For it so happens that I have never been able to convince myself the dead are utterly dead. I admire rational people and envy their clear heads, but what's the use of kidding? I played in the basement to my father and my mother, and when I learned a few pieces I would whisper, "Ma, this is 'Humoresque' for you." Or, "Pa, listen--'Meditation' from Tha�.__" I played with dedication, with feeling, with longing, love--played to the point of emotional collapse. Also down there in my studio I sang as I played, "Rispondi! Anima bella" (Mozart). "He was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Handel). Clutching the neck of the little instrument as if there were strangulation in my heart, I got cramps in my neck and shoulders. Over the years I had fixed up the little basement for myself, paneled it with chestnut and put in a dehumidifier. There I keep my little safe and my files and war souvenirs; and there also I have a pistol range. Under foot was now Lily's rug. At her insistence I had got rid of most of the pigs. But she herself was not very cleanly, and for one reason or another we couldn't get anyone from the neighborhood to do the cleaning. Yes, she swept up once in a while, but toward the door and not out of it, so there were mounds of dust in the doorway. Then she went to sit for her portrait,