Page 35 - WTP Vol. IX #5

this was “there is nothing you can really do about it, because there will always be these differences.”
The group continued moving from room to room. In every room young Sam complained, “There is noth- ing to see here.” And it was true that the building was surprisingly bare of furniture and decorations. Vivian felt this was appropriate. One aspect of the tragedy of the prisoners was that they had been im- prisoned in total darkness. They had not been able to see anything.
Vivian and the family moved ahead. In one room they were glad at last to see some preservation of an original dining hall. Sam was pleased to discover an
“Dr. Dichter’s difficult job was to help
people see how freedom was actually there for them when they felt it was not.”
ancient chair, covered in red velvet, from which the tyrant who had imprisoned the family might have held court.
Little Sam didn’t seem to think of this and unhesitat- ingly seated himself on the throne. His slender form and dignified bearing showed to advantage in the noble setting. On the wall behind him were colorful emblems of feudal heraldry. The father was soon us- ing his camera to proudly photograph his offspring. In turn, the son posed his parents before the em-
blems. All were caught up in the romance of being
in a castle, blissfully ignoring the real history of the grim place. As they photographed each other over and over, they were creating a focus of interest on themselves, rather than taking the trouble to consid- er the significance of their surroundings.
Vivian observed their behavior with some conster- nation. She wanted to understand the couple better so she asked how they had met. “At a dance in my hometown,” Barbara said. As an engineer, Robert traveled widely.
Vivian noticed Robert’s eyes following his wife’s curvy form as she climbed the ladders. Also he fre- quently caressed Barbara’s arms, bare to the shoul- ders. His emphasis was decidedly on the sensual. Even with his son, Vivian noticed, the interaction consisted largely of Robert often patting his son’s wavy hair.
Vivian told the parents that in their affection for their son, and in his appearance, she couldn’t help com- paring him to the youngest brother in the poem. She quoted Byron’s lines, “the youngest whom my father loved...he had his mother’s image in his fair face... eyes as blue as heaven.” She told them that in the poem how first the eldest brother grieved when the brother nearer him in age died. This one was a strong man, a fighter and hunter, but the death of the young- est was most poignant because he was the last link the remaining brother had to any of his kin.
While the family lingered in the dining hall to con- sider what Vivian had said, she moved on. She dis- covered the room that could have been the dungeon. Vivian peered out of tiny windows to see what the eldest might have seen when the guards unchained him after the death of his brothers. She recognized the poem’s “double dungeon of wall and wave.” It
was a vault below the surface of the lake like “a living grave.” Vivian gasped for breath, so closed off did she feel from the outer world as she read those lines from a copy of the poem she held in her hands.
She called to the family excitedly. “Look! Come here. See this is where he first saw some light.” Vivian shouted. When they all reached her side, she read
the lines that said he looked at the mountains and felt that unlike him, these had not changed, still they wore the crown of “a thousand years of snow” and he saw the “white walled distant town.”
Oh yes, I see, I see it,” said Barbara excited, looking
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