August 14, 2025 • 45 mins
CBS Radio Mystery Theater was a noteworthy attempt to revive in American radio dramas like Inner Sanctum (1941-1952) and Suspense (1942-1962). Radio dramas were widely considered "dead" 12 years prior to this series. CBS Radio Mystery Theater, or simply Mystery Theater, was created by Inner Sanctum creator Himan Brown and ran on CBS from 1974-1982. The show, much like older radio dramas, was introduced by a host (E.G. Marshall in this program), who steers us through the creaking door to start the episode. Many voices from the golden age of radio were featured, including Richard Widmark, Bret Morrison, Agnes Moorehead and many more.
Hope you enjoy this episode of Mystery Theater! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | iHeart | Amazon
Hope you enjoy this episode of Mystery Theater! Find all our OTR radio stations and podcasts at theaterofthemind-otr.com - Audio Credit: The Old Time Radio Researchers Group. - All Podcasts @ Spreaker | Apple | YouTube | Spotify | iHeart | Amazon
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, I ate him, the French writer had him of
his song.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Lived for only forty three years.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
He had composed six novels and over three hundred.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Ye arch stories.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
One of the best, one of the least well known,
is titled was It a Dream?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
There's only a little.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
More than two thousand words in life in the at
testaments of the clarity and economy of the Montsop style.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Why the one love, how.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Queerest is the only one being? The work I only one.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Sold in one's mind. I only wanted desire in the part,
and only one name of a lip, A name which
coming up continually, rising like the water in a spring,
from the depth of a sole to the lips, A
name which one repeats over and over again, which one
whispers siously everywhere, like a breath. Oh, I loved him madly.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Our mystery drama The Graveyard is based on the classic
short story of pedim Obrasong and was written especially for
the mystery theater by Alphabet Eric stars Norman Rose. It
is sponsored in part by a Buish motor division. I'll
be back shortly with that one, edem Obverson. I lived
(02:00):
from eighteen hundred and fifty to eighteen hundred.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And ninety three.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
In the last of these years were spent struggling with
and ends the coming to madness. This may account for
the slight touch of more benefy than runs in his work.
Yet the story we dramatize for you now deals with
one of the most universal of human experiences, the indescribable,
(02:24):
almost mystical experience of falling in love. Our dramas begin
inside one of the great churches of Paris.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I was the last in the long lungs of penitence,
high positions, months of the perfectly or. I had a
long tale to tell the father before I could speak
up the move, A long confession of love and the
love of the u quncipal passion of mad obsession of grief,
unimpactionable book, A long mass of the way was clear
(02:56):
at our front. Months of in the confessional box, lest
my father, Yes, my son, bless me, Father, for I
haven't seen from my last confession with mother. Go on,
my son, I don't know how you You don't know me, father?
(03:17):
Should I you don't recognize my voice?
Speaker 4 (03:20):
There is something from Minia.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's been a long time, more than a year before that.
You were my confessor more than that, my friend, or
so I once thought to continue. I was a faithful
Communican father for many years until until tell me what
troubles you, my son.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Uh, it's a long story.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I have time and so has about. But it all started.
Everything began where I met her. I went to a ball,
an elaborate ball given by friends. I'd been half a
mind not to at ten.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
The door for months life it seems so dreary, so monohingless.
And then that night, but I was standing with my
friend only viewing the get uttering difference when she she
came into the room.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That changed my life forever. H h what is it?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Every sudden they come to life, come to my if
shes I.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Have come to like U?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Who is that? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Man, there are at least two hundred people.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That she is not there. I think she just came
through the door.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I make this, But she's an older woman wearing blue
blue with black stripes.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
They just hitting down.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Oh that's my Diamona s Fall.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
But who is the young girl? You? I mean, you
know why?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
You?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I say why, I mightn't care.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
She is my fate.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Gutwright here do you remember her? Anything of her end?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And not where well enough to introduce me was to
do it?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Do it any one? The production of bad I murdered
politeness requited the pleasure of the warts, and a girl
I were living in a dream led the young sea Moore.
Took the back's floor and took her in my arms,
recircled the ball room again and again, and began. She
(05:31):
floated like a cloud in my arms, A pale blond
head just below my shoes, A tiny hand and his
white kid glove resting in mind, A factual body, moving
and perfect with him to my arm. I did not speak,
I could not. I was like a man chatted beneath
(05:52):
her spell. I was conscious only for wishing the music,
but never stole. But of course in time it did.
It stopped henas me, sir, why also give me?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
What did you say?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Released me? The walls has ended, The dancing is over.
Oh your pardon? You may take me back to my honor.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
No, no, why not?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Why wif I wanted to take you with my arms again?
I think the music has stopped for certain lengths of time.
Refreshment of being saved on the vernon. Would you would
you care for something begu I shine thing? Pat would
you care for about it? Would you? There's only one
(06:44):
thing I care for, that cer. Everything else is of
no importance or whoever, and what is that yourself? That's self,
your love. I would not so I pet you cause
the rule of father. I had a certain position in
Parisian society I had met, cause I had fancied the
(07:06):
number of girls. But this this was altogether difference, a
totally new experience. It lived to me to such heights
that my whole life before the fateful meeting scene any
significant without meaning. Oh yes, my son, Yes, yes, father,
Yes I'll try. I I saw her the next day.
(07:28):
She invited me for tigue, and I took flowers, roses
and lilies, all that I could hold. I think that
her aunt eyed me with some suspicion, But I thought
only a beniece whom I had, daughter to whom I
had dedicated my every thoughts, my every wish, my life,
myself go on, my son, h the days, the days,
(07:52):
and the father. How can I describe them, ac and
yet how well I remember them. Walks into nux and
book gardens, picnics in the bois, luncheons and dinners. I
moved to all this with the certainty of a sleep walker.
My mind, my soul fixed on that not too distant
day when I would put my heart at her feet
(08:13):
and implore her to pick it up and hold it
close to her own, cause I knew she would.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Caes my son would go on.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
At last, But they arrived. I had suggested the previous
evening that she'd come to my house for tea, and
she had acquiesced my good house keeper, Terreeses had cleaned
from atic to cellar with even more than her usual thoroughness.
Now you'll serve everything out here, Terras, yes here h no,
she'll she'll uh sit there, don't you.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Think it on the schedule?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Perfectess Ah, you have to see your course and coffee.
But she really likes best is chocolate. Now I have chocolate?
Hm no, no, what any of patty sleeve in costion?
Speaker 6 (08:57):
Mad lave be kind?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Knock her?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Oh perfect, perfect? I hope not on there will be pleased.
Oh tell her, that's wait til you see her. Wait
you see my see more than I am sure.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
She is very pretty, monsieur's pretty attack.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
There is no one word to describe her to her,
as could you describe an angel. I have never seen
an angel, and you'll see one today, an angel with
the ansc of a wood nim, the grace of a driad.
Uh huh am I talking wisely to his You are
in love, monsieur. Yes, yes, I am in love. I
(09:37):
don't fever awaiting her rival. Why I thought I was
going to be sick. I could not stick, I could
not stands to I moved from chert to chair, from
room to room, and then at last, at last, she
was there in my house. Oh pretty beautiful, beautiful you think?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
So?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Do you really think?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You live here alone?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yes, alone? Of course there's To's and her husband. He
tends to the gardens you have gotten? May I show you?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The roses are blue yellow, pink grass.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Oh it is that?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Now? This is the veranda, Johnny, What would you care?
Is it dub here?
Speaker 7 (10:25):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Here here? This is a comfortable chass, thank you, yet
very comfortable. Oh what would you like? Chocolates or tea? H?
So as will bring it? Oh? Coffee?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
We have medaland and then then macaroo. That's so bad?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Not so bad?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Huh. I'm I'm sorry, I sa sorry, really, i I'm
very Asian. It's told right, it's all right, my dear,
what is it?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
I've never seen you like this, so.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
So erratic. It's just that I I do you really
like the house?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
But I ton' you didn't know?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
You told me? But are you sure that you really
like it? Yes? Yes, you have to do there anything
about it that you but the th that you that
you don't like it?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Nothing.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I think it's perfect. I want you to think that
it's perfect.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
It's so important what I see.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
You don't know how important it is because because it's known,
because I want you to share it with me. You
want me to to live here with me? You know
how I love you. I think that you love me.
Do you love me? Yes? As much as I love you? No,
(11:41):
don'times I know that you can't love me the way
I love you. But but but do you love me?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Then will you come here to this house to live
with me, to let me love you and protect you
with door you, to take care of you? Oh, my dear?
Will you yes?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
My lam oh? Yes? The day and the week and
the month that followed me. How can I describe the
night I loved her? Madly? Why does one love father?
Why does one love her? How queer it is to
(12:22):
see only one being in the world, to have only
one thought in one's mind, only one desire in the heart,
and only one name on the lips, A name which
comes up continually from the depths of the soul to
the lips, A name which one repeats over and over again,
which one whispers ceaselessly everywhere, like a prayer. I lived
(12:45):
on her tenderness, on her caresses, in her arms, on
her words, so completely wrapped up, bound and absorbed in
everything which came from her that I no longer cared
whether it was day or night, or whether I was
dead or alive on this old earth of ours, in
all our time together. She asked for only one thing,
(13:05):
one material thing, and I was happy, deliriously happy to
buy it for her. I would have bought her the world, sweetheart.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Could we have a mirror.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Here here, here in the hall, a big one. I
need it well, then you shall have it. I needed
to look at myself from head to foot before I
go out, to see if my toilette looks well and
is correct. Pretty. You are always correct, always pretty, ha ha.
I needed to reassure myself we'll go together tomorrow and
(13:35):
buy one. You shall pick it out, and so we did.
We found the beautiful mirror, seven feet tall, supported by
a pillar on either side, and mounted on a pedestal,
the whole thing carved with cupids and garlands of flowers,
and gilded all over. You must have seen that mirror. Father.
(13:56):
You've been in my house and I at least once.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I have been many houses, seen many mirrors.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
But you must remember this one.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I can't be sure.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
You must remember me. You've heard my voice, you've heard
it before. I don't know, loud, raucous raised in anger,
card to tell, hurling awful words that your father calling
you names, blesspheming, you couldn't forget. I have not forgotten,
dear merciful lords, I have not forgotten. How could you
(14:29):
forget it?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Have you ever wondered what transpires within the confessionals?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I have?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
There must be times when sorrow and guilt, all intermingled,
pour out from the confessor on the neutral ears of
the priest, and from far above and beyond. The Lord
takes note of the tears, the suffering, the regret, and.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
The muffled excuses.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Takes note and understands, I shall be back with that
two in just a few moments. Against one wall of
the nave of a great Gothic church in Paris stands
(15:18):
an enclosed cubicle made of mahogany and richly carved. Within
the cubicle are two men, one a priest, one a
common citizen of Paris. Only a thin wall separates the
two men, a thin wall and a foot square grille
through which they converse. The citizen has been telling a
(15:39):
long story to his confessor, a story of passion.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And wild romance. You have been in my house, father,
have I at least once? You must remember me. You've
heard my voice.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Before, I think perhaps, But though on, my son, benish your.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Story as you will. Father Simon and I lived in
our house like two birds, forever joined. I asked nothing
more of life than to watch her every movement, hang
upon her every word. To comb her pale blonde hair
was an exquisite pleasure. To gaze on her pearl colored
body in the bath struck me mute with wonder. When
(16:20):
she left the house, I left immediately after, because I
could not endure its charms unless she was there to enhansom.
But I waited until the very last minute. I so
enjoyed those moments when She stood before the great mirror
in the foyer, looking with pouting and pretended anxiety into
the great glass. I would stand in the back of her,
(16:42):
charmed to watch both my darling and her reflection. Do
you like this dress? Tell me, oh, very much. You
don't think purple is the wrong color. I think purple
is exactly the right color.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I was torn the seamstress wanted to make it up.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And citron yellow. You look ravish no matter what you wear, pink, purple, yellow, green, Ah,
you are perfection from top to tall. I don't mess
my hair, darling, look out my bonnet. Let me come over.
Tell me where you're going. And you're purple and pink. Oh,
there's an art show. Are and and David and all those.
(17:20):
I'll I'll look in on that. Our tents will probably
meet me there, and we'll lunch at the Prunier's and
then shop. All right, if you must go, my love,
I have to.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Go out now.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
And then you'll be all right, won't you. Well. I
shall manage to live exist somehow. Till seven o'clock. I
was a man blessed beyond human deserving. I scarcely noticed
the passing of the day. One day. I followed her
into the foyer and stood silent but amused while she
primped and creamed herself before the huge mirror. She had
(17:55):
never seemed so desirable. Well, well, well, what do I look?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
All right?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
You look like a little cherub?
Speaker 7 (18:08):
A cherub?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Really, I'm not sure I want to look like a cherub.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Catty helped.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That's the way you look. Well, I suppose it's all right,
my darling. I think I heard thunder.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Oh no, you couldn't have.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I don't want you to go out in the rains.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
But it's not raining.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
See look out the window. The sun is shining, but
a storm might be coming up. You could get caught
in it, sweetheart. I have a fitting, too fitting. I
need the dresses, I need the shooting. I can't postpone
either one. You hear you hear that's thunder. I can't
help it.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I have to go, I promised, tortense fatily i'd meet her.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Kiss me, darling.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
I have to be on my way.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I wish you wouldn't go out. I don't be all right,
so don't worry. You'll get wrinkles. Good buy my love.
I let her go. I could not hold her. I
beat off the feeling of dread that had gone from me.
All afternoon, I paced the rooms of the house, listening
(19:12):
to the thunder grow louder, watching the black clouds grow heavier,
and then the storm burst late in the day seemed
to rest the boy, staring stupidly at the great mirror
that had a few hours earlier held her reflection, all
blue and white like a summer sky. I wrenched my
(19:33):
eyes from the mirror and opened the front door. I
just pulled up in front of the house. Sumon, Simon,
come inside, Come inside, I'll pay the driver. Come inside quickly,
I insisted. She goes straight to bed. She protested that
(19:53):
there was no need, that she had not been out
in the rain for so very long that she did
not get so very wet. You make such a fuss, darling.
It's not necessary. It is necessary, I insist. Now, when
you finish your hot bath, you'll drink some common meal tea,
perhaps a small amount of brandy. Love such a fuss
over nuts, himon. If anything should happen to you, it
(20:13):
will be the end of me. I couldn't go on living.
Come in the key.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
You requested this, yere.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Oh, thank you, d give it to me. I brought
a biscuit. Oh, good, good, thank you, thank you to
not at all mad wi you your hot toob is waiting.
You can drink this in the bath. I shall break
the biscuit into little pieces and feed it to you
like a mother bird. You are a dear Oh you're coughing.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I stopped.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Come along, my dear thoughtful mother bird. The next day
she coughed to She coughed for about a week, and
then she took to her bed. What happened then, father,
I do not altogether remember, but doctors came broke and
right away medicines were brought, and some women made her
(21:04):
drink them. Her hands were hot, her forehead was burning,
her eyes were bright and sad. When I spoke to her,
she answered me, but I do not remember what we said.
I have forgotten everything everything. She died, and I very
(21:26):
well remember that last slight feeble sigh.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Oh it get over.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
What happened then, I hardly know, but I do know
that a priest came to my house, a priest who
meant well.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
But I am here to offer you what comfort I
can miss.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Year. There is no comfort. She was every to me.
I lived by the light of her eyes. I rose
in the morning, slept at night with no thought but
of her. She was my life, my heart. She was
your mistress.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Did you hear me, monsieur?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Why do you stare at.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Me my mistress?
Speaker 3 (22:16):
You dare to call her my mistress? Only wanted youself her,
You wanted to grade her in my eyes? You dare
to call her my mistress? She was my sid did
not mean to you what could you possibly know of
a love like mine? Please? You'll make me sick. You
know nothing, You know nothing of life, So what can
(22:37):
you possibly know of deathlyse listen, you feel nothing, nothing
in your black robes. You descend like a vulture on
this house which was her home, the house she sanctified
with her presence, made holy, Yes, made holy, because she
condescended to live within its walls. None mighty, you're dare
(22:59):
to put an name to my darling, my best love,
my only love. I wanted only to dare to swell
her name. You you cheat, you sank Demonio's cheat. Leave
my house. I cannot endure your presence. Leave me to
my memories and my grief. Go and leave me alone.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
If you should need me, I shall not need you.
If you need God, I shall not need God.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
He has taken from me all that I ever needed
or wanted, So why should I need or want him?
Oh my, if you have any pity, go away and
leave me alone. Now you know I am father. Yes,
I treated you so badly. I'm heartily sorry. Father.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I did not understand perhaps what this girl meant to you.
I should have had more.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Feeling, I should have had more patience what I did
to you that day. Father, that was not my only sin.
It was only the beginning of many, many sins. You
want to tell me if you will listen to my
miserable story, of course I will listen. They consulted me
about the funeral, but I do not remember anything that
(24:19):
they said, although I recollect the coffin and the sound
of the hammer when they nailed her down. Oh God, God,
I can try.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
To compose yourself, My sons, try to tell me the
rest of this sad story, if you can.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
She was buried, buried, she in that hole. Some people came,
female friends. I made my escape and ran away. I
ran and then walked through the streets. I went home,
and the next morning I left Paris and started on
(24:58):
a journey? Is that all? All? Is that all? No? No,
that is not all? No, what sins? What further sins?
Followed in the wake of my departure, you would scarcely believe.
But can you believe it? Wherever I went, her face
followed me. There were times, lying on some strange bed,
(25:21):
in some strange city, I would smell her perfume. It
would creep into the air like some celestial vapor, and
I would be absorbed into it until I myself vanished
and the scent took over.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Do you understand the mystics have smelled the perfume of
roses when there were no roses go on.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Sometimes it was her voice falling upon my ear, shutting
out the street sounds, silencing the noise of cities, or
the singing of the birds in the country, or the
conversation of others. I heard only her sweet voice, her voice,
her voice, her voice, No other voice but hers, no
other face but hers, no other sense but hers, No
(26:07):
one anywhere but her.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Do you understand, father, I understand that you suffered just
a great deal.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yes, yes, I suffered. But it is what I did
to ease my suffering, not that it was ever eased.
But what I did to try to shut out the
sight of her silence, the sound of her, stifle the
smell of her. The atrocities I committed, the opportunities I practiced,
(26:38):
the cruelties, All these I must confess to you if
I am ever to know peace again.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
To what lengths will men not go to ease the
agony of a tortured mind? What twisting and turning will
he not subject to his body.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Two or his mind? For both?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
There are drugs, he may try them. There is debauchery.
He may resort to that. He may even become a
criminal and drive himself to prison. Whatever he does, whatever
path he follows, he is seeking one thing only rest
for his troubled mind, peace for his suffering soul. I
(27:28):
shall continue with Act three. In just a few moments,
a man has sought out a particular priest to make confession,
A particular man who is blurting out the story of
(27:50):
his love for a young girl, a love to which
he dedicated everything he had, his worldly goods, his thoughts,
his life, himself.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
He lived by the light of her eyes.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Then one day she died. After the funeral, he went home,
packed the suit case and fled from Paris.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
It is what I did to ease my suffering by
not that it was ever eased. What I did to
shut out the sight of her silence, the sound of
her stifle, the smell of her, the atrocities I committed,
the obscenities I practiced, the cruelties I inflicted. Oh, my sweet.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Savior, you want to tell me now? I must can't
wait then, I am listening.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I grew afraid to travel alone. I was afraid of
what I might do next. So I wrote to my
friend Henri, the same friend who had presented me to Simon,
urging him to meet me in Causablanca. Good friend that
he is, he agreed. We arranged to meet at the
sidewalk cafe. There. You are rie, It is you, isn't it?
(28:59):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Is?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Sit down? But you look terrible? Nonsense? What do you
want to drink?
Speaker 4 (29:05):
And it's not nonsense? What have you been doing to yourself?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I've been trying to forget her, ah, but this is
no way to forget her, My friend, what is the way?
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I don't know, but as.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Just it, nobody knows. I don't know either know what
would you have to drink?
Speaker 4 (29:21):
They're drinking absent man'tu is that what you are? Heavens now, Pierre,
you are never like this?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Well I am. Now what have you been doing? Oh?
This and that? What do you want to drink? Nothing?
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Nothing?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I want another absent waiter? Where's the way to my friend? Please?
Don't do this. You know I covered the bazaars, the
clubs and the brothels of Kazabaka. The days there are
blurred in my memory. It's as though a man other
than myself did the things I did, And even those
(29:59):
things are vague, undefined, as though they happened in another time,
another place, to another person. At any rate, there came
a day when Ali burst into my hotel room. His
face was white and pinched, but his eyes blazed. Wake up,
wake up? What?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
What like the badge when leaving?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Oh? What's the matter? All right, I'll do it for you.
What for? What is the matter?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Or any couple of my friend?
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Bad couple?
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Where's this out?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Came?
Speaker 3 (30:29):
What trouble? Don't you know? I don't trouble?
Speaker 4 (30:33):
You say you remember that girl last night?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
What girl? Which girl? Good lord?
Speaker 4 (30:38):
You don't even remember.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
The girl, the one you picked up at the nightclub?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (30:43):
Oh, you do remember that, don't you.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
I think you took her back to her room. Do
you remember?
Speaker 4 (30:48):
No, you don't remember. I can see you done well,
you did. I don't suppose you remember what you did
after that?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Do you?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I'll please?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, senus rotted your brain, my friend, you don't know
what do you do? And once you done it, you.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Don't remember it? Please? All right?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Look at me, looked at we let go?
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I said, look at me, what what did I do?
You have killed that girl? Perhaps you did kill her.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
She's in the hospital now. Perhaps you'll recover, Perhaps you won't.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I did that? Why Heaven knows? Why would I do
a thing like that the moment?
Speaker 4 (31:23):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Why.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
What matters is that I'm going to take you home.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I have no home to Paris. You have a house there.
It's a house, not home.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
And at least you'll have to raise to look after you,
feed you properly, and you'll have your own doctor, your priest.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I can't tell him.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
You have to tell them.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yesterday I returned to Paris, and when I saw my
room again, our room, our bed. I'll venture everything that
remains of the life of a human being after death.
I will see by such a violent attack of fresh
grief that I felt like opening the window and throwing
(32:04):
myself out into the street. I could not remain any
longer among these things, between these walls which had enclosed
and sheltered her, which retained a thousand atoms of her,
out of her skin, out of her breath, in their
imperceptible crevices. I took up my hat to make my escape,
And just as I reached the door, I passed the
(32:27):
large glass in the foyer, which she had put there
so that she might look at herself every day from
head to foot. I stopped short in front of that
looking glass in which she had been so often reflected,
so often that it must have retained her reflection. I
was standing there, trembling, with my eyes fixed on the glass,
(32:51):
on that flat, profound, empty glass, which had contained her entirely,
and had possessed her as much as I I felt
as if I loved that glass.
Speaker 7 (33:06):
I touched it.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
It was cold. I stretched my arms around it, tried
to hold it close to me, to warm it with
my body, to make it live again. It was tall,
it was heavy, the strain to hold it close, close.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And then, oh, no, what a mirror. But what happened, monsieur?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Are you all right?
Speaker 4 (33:44):
I can't let let me help you. You're bleeding me.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I'm all right, let me help you trying to move
the mirror.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Why didn't you call me.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I'd have helped you.
Speaker 6 (33:58):
Oh, your poor faith, Oh, cutting leaving.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I'll set you do. No, No, I don't need it.
I don't want. But it's only one thing I need
or want. If I can't have that, I want nothing
with you. Where you died, I went out without knowing,
without wishing it, and toward the cemetery I found her
(34:21):
simple grave, a white marble cross with these few words.
Speaker 7 (34:27):
She loved, was loved, and died. She is there below,
I thought, decayed.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I sobbed with my forehead on the ground, and I
stayed there for a long time, a long time, And
then I saw that it was getting dark, and a
strange mad wish, the wish of a despairing lover seized me.
I wished to pass the night weeping on her grave.
But then I thought I would be seen and driven out.
(35:03):
How was I to manage? Oh? I was cunning, And
I got up and began to roam about in that
city of the dead.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I walked and walked.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Huh, how small the city is compared with the other,
the city in which we live, And yet how much
more numerous the dead are than the living. You are
right myself, Yes, yes, I'm all right. I must finish,
I must finish my story. I was alone, perfectly alone.
(35:33):
When it was quite dark, I began to walk softly, slowly,
inaudibly through that ground full of dead people. I wandered
about for a long time, but I could not find
her grave again. I went on with extended arms, knocking
against the tombs, my hands, my feet, my knees, my chest,
(35:54):
even with my head, Without being able to find her,
I groped like a blind man. I felt the stones,
the crosses, the iron railings. I read the names with
my fingers, by passing them over the letters. Or I
was frightened, horribly frightened. Graves. Graves is nothing but graves.
(36:20):
On my right I left in front of me, around me,
everywhere there were graves. I sat down on one of
them if I could not walk any longer. My knees
were so weak. I could hear my heart beat. Yes,
and I heard something else as well. What what a
(36:42):
confused nameless noise was the noise in my head in
the impenetrable night, or beneath the mysterious earth, the earth
sown with human corpses. I was paralyzed with terror, cold,
with fright, ready to shout out, ready to die, Yes,
to die on the moment, to die as had he
(37:03):
finished father. Suddenly it seemed to me, it seemed to
me that the slab of marble on which I sat
was moving, Yes, moving as if it were being raised
with a bound. I sprang under the neighboring tomb and
I saw, Yes, I distinctly saw the stone which I
(37:23):
had just quitted, rise upright. And then the dead person appeared,
a naked skeleton, pushing the stone back. I saw it
quite clearly, though the night was so dark. On the
headstone I had read, here lies Jacques Boulifont, who died
(37:47):
at the age of fifty one. He loved his.
Speaker 7 (37:50):
Family, was kind and honorable, and died in.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
The grace of the Lord. The dead man or his ghost,
picked up a stone off the path, a little pointed stone,
and he began to scrape the letters carefully. He slowly
effaced them, and with the hollows of his eyes he
looked at the place where they had been engraved, and then,
with the tip of the bone that had been his forefinger,
(38:16):
he wrote in luminous letters. I strained to see the
new words he was inscribing.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Here lies Jack Cliva, who died at.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
The age of eeventy one.
Speaker 8 (38:31):
He hastened his father's chad by his unkindness, as he
wished to inherit his fortune. He tortured his wife, commented
his children, deceived his neighbors, robbed everyone.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
He could, and died wretched. The dead man stood motionless,
looking at his work. On turning around, I saw that
all the graves were open, but all the dead bodies
had emerged from them, and at all had effaced the
lines inscribed on the gravestones by their relations, substituting the
truth instead. The grave to my right, whose headstone had
(39:12):
read Marie Moussier, Devoted wife and mother, faithful friend, charitable neighbor,
dead at the age of eighty four, the skeleton of
an old woman was bent over it, and carefully writing
with her bony finger. The new words spoke solemnly in
a strange, quavering voice.
Speaker 6 (39:31):
No mucia go it scander around them, hated her, and
then too out. He clutched him there to children and
gowled me and speaking a war under world age.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
A little far behind me, another grave opened, and a
ghostly cigare emerged. His stone read a Foo Sparrow, merchant
and philanthrop most lies here mourned by all who loved
him for his many beneficent works.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
Par false fellow, imagined and unwilling philanthropist liars.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Hear moned by man who know his real reasons.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
But everything he did the breed, and he.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Makes of himself as one who loved his fellow man the.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Letter to steal of him. Behind the men, I saw
that all had been the tormentors of their neighbors, malicious, dishonest, hypocrites, liars, rogues,
that they had stolen and deceived, performed every disgraceful, every
abominable action. These good fathers, these faithful wives, these devoted sons,
(40:45):
these chaste daughters, these honest tradesmen, these men and women
who were called irreproachful, They were all writing on the
threshold of their eternal abode, the truth, the terrible and
the holy truth, of which everybody was ignorant or pretended
to be ignorant. They were alive.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
I sunned, almost finished, Father, I thought that she.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
She too, must to Britain something on her tombstone. Now
running without fear among the half open coffins, among the
corpses and the skeletons, I went toward her shore that
I should find her immediately. I recognized her at once,
without seeing her face, which was covered by the winding
sheet on the marble cross, where shortly before I had
(41:30):
read she loved, was loved, and died, where new words
words she now spoke aloud. Having gone out in the
rain one day in order to deceive her love, she
caught cold and died. Appears that they found me at daybreak,
(41:55):
lying on the grave of unconscious.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
But you must realize, poor man, that this was all
a delusion, the delusion of a fevered brain, a waking dream.
Oh no, no, it was all quite true that she
betrayed you, and not for.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
The first time. Father. I have always known it, I
have known it all along.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
There are truths which are impossible to face. There are
realities which can destroy us if we try to come
to grips with them before we are ready. Once grasped,
they become simpler, more treatable, even after a while commonplace.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
How long it takes to accept the unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
That depends on the sufferer and the intensity of the
suffering he bears.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
I shall return shortly.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
We trust that Monsieur de Mopesow, from wherever he dwells
beyond the grave, will not think we have done violence
to his brief and fragile tale in trying to transpose
it into dramatic form. We have used some of his
own words, as many as possible, and more.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Of our own.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
If we have been unkind to his original work. We
ask his pardon and offer as an excuse our sincere
desire to prevent his beautiful story from slipping away from
us in the midst of time. Our cast included Norman Rose.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Jadderal and Ralph bell E, v Jester and Guy Sorell.
The entire production was under the direction of.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Hyman Brown.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
And now a preview of our next tale. The story
they told me Annie, I figured there wasn't much question with.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
What they see the thing. It's too bad.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
I figured I'd better come to you with it. Best
for you to decide what has to be done. Oh,
you done right. I'm just wondering that maybe it won't
have to go me ifore.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
It's settled up to you to decide that.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
I guess well, one thing I can tell you right now,
We've got to keep those two in town.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
We can't let them leave colony.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Keep them aw, Annie, they're itching to get on their
way right now, and we're gonna talk them into state.
You're the sheriff, Anger got a jail ancher.
Speaker 6 (44:40):
But Annie, you have to hold them bad, hold them
for what.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Ain't no law against thinking? You saw a flying saucer,
who think of something? They can't be allowed to leave colony,
not alive. They can't.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
This is E. G.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dreams,
I mean.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, I ate him, the French writer had him of
his song.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Lived for only forty three years.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
He had composed six novels and over three hundred.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Ye arch stories.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
One of the best, one of the least well known,
is titled was It a Dream?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
There's only a little.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
More than two thousand words in life in the at
testaments of the clarity and economy of the Montsop style.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Why the one love, how.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Queerest is the only one being? The work I only one.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Sold in one's mind. I only wanted desire in the part,
and only one name of a lip, A name which
coming up continually, rising like the water in a spring,
from the depth of a sole to the lips, A
name which one repeats over and over again, which one
whispers siously everywhere, like a breath. Oh, I loved him madly.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Our mystery drama The Graveyard is based on the classic
short story of pedim Obrasong and was written especially for
the mystery theater by Alphabet Eric stars Norman Rose. It
is sponsored in part by a Buish motor division. I'll
be back shortly with that one, edem Obverson. I lived
(02:00):
from eighteen hundred and fifty to eighteen hundred.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
And ninety three.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
In the last of these years were spent struggling with
and ends the coming to madness. This may account for
the slight touch of more benefy than runs in his work.
Yet the story we dramatize for you now deals with
one of the most universal of human experiences, the indescribable,
(02:24):
almost mystical experience of falling in love. Our dramas begin
inside one of the great churches of Paris.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
I was the last in the long lungs of penitence,
high positions, months of the perfectly or. I had a
long tale to tell the father before I could speak
up the move, A long confession of love and the
love of the u quncipal passion of mad obsession of grief,
unimpactionable book, A long mass of the way was clear
(02:56):
at our front. Months of in the confessional box, lest
my father, Yes, my son, bless me, Father, for I
haven't seen from my last confession with mother. Go on,
my son, I don't know how you You don't know me, father?
(03:17):
Should I you don't recognize my voice?
Speaker 4 (03:20):
There is something from Minia.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's been a long time, more than a year before that.
You were my confessor more than that, my friend, or
so I once thought to continue. I was a faithful
Communican father for many years until until tell me what
troubles you, my son.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Uh, it's a long story.
Speaker 5 (03:43):
I have time and so has about. But it all started.
Everything began where I met her. I went to a ball,
an elaborate ball given by friends. I'd been half a
mind not to at ten.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
The door for months life it seems so dreary, so monohingless.
And then that night, but I was standing with my
friend only viewing the get uttering difference when she she
came into the room.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
That changed my life forever. H h what is it?
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Every sudden they come to life, come to my if
shes I.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Have come to like U?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
Who is that? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (04:31):
Man, there are at least two hundred people.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
That she is not there. I think she just came
through the door.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
I make this, But she's an older woman wearing blue
blue with black stripes.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
They just hitting down.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
Oh that's my Diamona s Fall.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
But who is the young girl? You? I mean, you
know why?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
You?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I say why, I mightn't care.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
She is my fate.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Gutwright here do you remember her? Anything of her end?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
And not where well enough to introduce me was to
do it?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Do it any one? The production of bad I murdered
politeness requited the pleasure of the warts, and a girl
I were living in a dream led the young sea Moore.
Took the back's floor and took her in my arms,
recircled the ball room again and again, and began. She
(05:31):
floated like a cloud in my arms, A pale blond
head just below my shoes, A tiny hand and his
white kid glove resting in mind, A factual body, moving
and perfect with him to my arm. I did not speak,
I could not. I was like a man chatted beneath
(05:52):
her spell. I was conscious only for wishing the music,
but never stole. But of course in time it did.
It stopped henas me, sir, why also give me?
Speaker 1 (06:08):
What did you say?
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Released me? The walls has ended, The dancing is over.
Oh your pardon? You may take me back to my honor.
Speaker 6 (06:19):
No, no, why not?
Speaker 3 (06:24):
Why wif I wanted to take you with my arms again?
I think the music has stopped for certain lengths of time.
Refreshment of being saved on the vernon. Would you would
you care for something begu I shine thing? Pat would
you care for about it? Would you? There's only one
(06:44):
thing I care for, that cer. Everything else is of
no importance or whoever, and what is that yourself? That's self,
your love. I would not so I pet you cause
the rule of father. I had a certain position in
Parisian society I had met, cause I had fancied the
(07:06):
number of girls. But this this was altogether difference, a
totally new experience. It lived to me to such heights
that my whole life before the fateful meeting scene any
significant without meaning. Oh yes, my son, Yes, yes, father,
Yes I'll try. I I saw her the next day.
(07:28):
She invited me for tigue, and I took flowers, roses
and lilies, all that I could hold. I think that
her aunt eyed me with some suspicion, But I thought
only a beniece whom I had, daughter to whom I
had dedicated my every thoughts, my every wish, my life,
myself go on, my son, h the days, the days,
(07:52):
and the father. How can I describe them, ac and
yet how well I remember them. Walks into nux and
book gardens, picnics in the bois, luncheons and dinners. I
moved to all this with the certainty of a sleep walker.
My mind, my soul fixed on that not too distant
day when I would put my heart at her feet
(08:13):
and implore her to pick it up and hold it
close to her own, cause I knew she would.
Speaker 4 (08:19):
Caes my son would go on.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
At last, But they arrived. I had suggested the previous
evening that she'd come to my house for tea, and
she had acquiesced my good house keeper, Terreeses had cleaned
from atic to cellar with even more than her usual thoroughness.
Now you'll serve everything out here, Terras, yes here h no,
she'll she'll uh sit there, don't you.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Think it on the schedule?
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Perfectess Ah, you have to see your course and coffee.
But she really likes best is chocolate. Now I have chocolate?
Hm no, no, what any of patty sleeve in costion?
Speaker 6 (08:57):
Mad lave be kind?
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Knock her?
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Oh perfect, perfect? I hope not on there will be pleased.
Oh tell her, that's wait til you see her. Wait
you see my see more than I am sure.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
She is very pretty, monsieur's pretty attack.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
There is no one word to describe her to her,
as could you describe an angel. I have never seen
an angel, and you'll see one today, an angel with
the ansc of a wood nim, the grace of a driad.
Uh huh am I talking wisely to his You are
in love, monsieur. Yes, yes, I am in love. I
(09:37):
don't fever awaiting her rival. Why I thought I was
going to be sick. I could not stick, I could
not stands to I moved from chert to chair, from
room to room, and then at last, at last, she
was there in my house. Oh pretty beautiful, beautiful you think?
Speaker 1 (10:03):
So?
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Do you really think?
Speaker 1 (10:04):
So?
Speaker 3 (10:05):
You live here alone?
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (10:06):
Yes, alone? Of course there's To's and her husband. He
tends to the gardens you have gotten? May I show you?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
Of course?
Speaker 3 (10:14):
The roses are blue yellow, pink grass.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Oh it is that?
Speaker 3 (10:19):
Now? This is the veranda, Johnny, What would you care?
Is it dub here?
Speaker 7 (10:25):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Here here? This is a comfortable chass, thank you, yet
very comfortable. Oh what would you like? Chocolates or tea? H?
So as will bring it? Oh? Coffee?
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (10:35):
We have medaland and then then macaroo. That's so bad?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Not so bad?
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Huh. I'm I'm sorry, I sa sorry, really, i I'm
very Asian. It's told right, it's all right, my dear,
what is it?
Speaker 4 (10:49):
I've never seen you like this, so.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
So erratic. It's just that I I do you really
like the house?
Speaker 1 (10:59):
But I ton' you didn't know?
Speaker 3 (11:00):
You told me? But are you sure that you really
like it? Yes? Yes, you have to do there anything
about it that you but the th that you that
you don't like it?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Nothing.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
I think it's perfect. I want you to think that
it's perfect.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
It's so important what I see.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
You don't know how important it is because because it's known,
because I want you to share it with me. You
want me to to live here with me? You know
how I love you. I think that you love me.
Do you love me? Yes? As much as I love you? No,
(11:41):
don'times I know that you can't love me the way
I love you. But but but do you love me?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Then will you come here to this house to live
with me, to let me love you and protect you
with door you, to take care of you? Oh, my dear?
Will you yes?
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (12:02):
My lam oh? Yes? The day and the week and
the month that followed me. How can I describe the
night I loved her? Madly? Why does one love father?
Why does one love her? How queer it is to
(12:22):
see only one being in the world, to have only
one thought in one's mind, only one desire in the heart,
and only one name on the lips, A name which
comes up continually from the depths of the soul to
the lips, A name which one repeats over and over again,
which one whispers ceaselessly everywhere, like a prayer. I lived
(12:45):
on her tenderness, on her caresses, in her arms, on
her words, so completely wrapped up, bound and absorbed in
everything which came from her that I no longer cared
whether it was day or night, or whether I was
dead or alive on this old earth of ours, in
all our time together. She asked for only one thing,
(13:05):
one material thing, and I was happy, deliriously happy to
buy it for her. I would have bought her the world, sweetheart.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Could we have a mirror.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Here here, here in the hall, a big one. I
need it well, then you shall have it. I needed
to look at myself from head to foot before I
go out, to see if my toilette looks well and
is correct. Pretty. You are always correct, always pretty, ha ha.
I needed to reassure myself we'll go together tomorrow and
(13:35):
buy one. You shall pick it out, and so we did.
We found the beautiful mirror, seven feet tall, supported by
a pillar on either side, and mounted on a pedestal,
the whole thing carved with cupids and garlands of flowers,
and gilded all over. You must have seen that mirror. Father.
(13:56):
You've been in my house and I at least once.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
I have been many houses, seen many mirrors.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
But you must remember this one.
Speaker 4 (14:05):
I can't be sure.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
You must remember me. You've heard my voice, you've heard
it before. I don't know, loud, raucous raised in anger,
card to tell, hurling awful words that your father calling
you names, blesspheming, you couldn't forget. I have not forgotten,
dear merciful lords, I have not forgotten. How could you
(14:29):
forget it?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Have you ever wondered what transpires within the confessionals?
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I have?
Speaker 2 (14:40):
There must be times when sorrow and guilt, all intermingled,
pour out from the confessor on the neutral ears of
the priest, and from far above and beyond. The Lord
takes note of the tears, the suffering, the regret, and.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
The muffled excuses.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Takes note and understands, I shall be back with that
two in just a few moments. Against one wall of
the nave of a great Gothic church in Paris stands
(15:18):
an enclosed cubicle made of mahogany and richly carved. Within
the cubicle are two men, one a priest, one a
common citizen of Paris. Only a thin wall separates the
two men, a thin wall and a foot square grille
through which they converse. The citizen has been telling a
(15:39):
long story to his confessor, a story of passion.
Speaker 3 (15:43):
And wild romance. You have been in my house, father,
have I at least once? You must remember me. You've
heard my voice.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Before, I think perhaps, But though on, my son, benish your.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Story as you will. Father Simon and I lived in
our house like two birds, forever joined. I asked nothing
more of life than to watch her every movement, hang
upon her every word. To comb her pale blonde hair
was an exquisite pleasure. To gaze on her pearl colored
body in the bath struck me mute with wonder. When
(16:20):
she left the house, I left immediately after, because I
could not endure its charms unless she was there to enhansom.
But I waited until the very last minute. I so
enjoyed those moments when She stood before the great mirror
in the foyer, looking with pouting and pretended anxiety into
the great glass. I would stand in the back of her,
(16:42):
charmed to watch both my darling and her reflection. Do
you like this dress? Tell me, oh, very much. You
don't think purple is the wrong color. I think purple
is exactly the right color.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
I was torn the seamstress wanted to make it up.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And citron yellow. You look ravish no matter what you wear, pink, purple, yellow, green, Ah,
you are perfection from top to tall. I don't mess
my hair, darling, look out my bonnet. Let me come over.
Tell me where you're going. And you're purple and pink. Oh,
there's an art show. Are and and David and all those.
(17:20):
I'll I'll look in on that. Our tents will probably
meet me there, and we'll lunch at the Prunier's and
then shop. All right, if you must go, my love,
I have to.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Go out now.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
And then you'll be all right, won't you. Well. I
shall manage to live exist somehow. Till seven o'clock. I
was a man blessed beyond human deserving. I scarcely noticed
the passing of the day. One day. I followed her
into the foyer and stood silent but amused while she
primped and creamed herself before the huge mirror. She had
(17:55):
never seemed so desirable. Well, well, well, what do I look?
Speaker 1 (18:05):
All right?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
You look like a little cherub?
Speaker 7 (18:08):
A cherub?
Speaker 3 (18:09):
Really, I'm not sure I want to look like a cherub.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Catty helped.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
That's the way you look. Well, I suppose it's all right,
my darling. I think I heard thunder.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Oh no, you couldn't have.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
I don't want you to go out in the rains.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
But it's not raining.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
See look out the window. The sun is shining, but
a storm might be coming up. You could get caught
in it, sweetheart. I have a fitting, too fitting. I
need the dresses, I need the shooting. I can't postpone
either one. You hear you hear that's thunder. I can't
help it.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
I have to go, I promised, tortense fatily i'd meet her.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
Kiss me, darling.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
I have to be on my way.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I wish you wouldn't go out. I don't be all right,
so don't worry. You'll get wrinkles. Good buy my love.
I let her go. I could not hold her. I
beat off the feeling of dread that had gone from me.
All afternoon, I paced the rooms of the house, listening
(19:12):
to the thunder grow louder, watching the black clouds grow heavier,
and then the storm burst late in the day seemed
to rest the boy, staring stupidly at the great mirror
that had a few hours earlier held her reflection, all
blue and white like a summer sky. I wrenched my
(19:33):
eyes from the mirror and opened the front door. I
just pulled up in front of the house. Sumon, Simon,
come inside, Come inside, I'll pay the driver. Come inside quickly,
I insisted. She goes straight to bed. She protested that
(19:53):
there was no need, that she had not been out
in the rain for so very long that she did
not get so very wet. You make such a fuss, darling.
It's not necessary. It is necessary, I insist. Now, when
you finish your hot bath, you'll drink some common meal tea,
perhaps a small amount of brandy. Love such a fuss
over nuts, himon. If anything should happen to you, it
(20:13):
will be the end of me. I couldn't go on living.
Come in the key.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
You requested this, yere.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
Oh, thank you, d give it to me. I brought
a biscuit. Oh, good, good, thank you, thank you to
not at all mad wi you your hot toob is waiting.
You can drink this in the bath. I shall break
the biscuit into little pieces and feed it to you
like a mother bird. You are a dear Oh you're coughing.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I stopped.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Come along, my dear thoughtful mother bird. The next day
she coughed to She coughed for about a week, and
then she took to her bed. What happened then, father,
I do not altogether remember, but doctors came broke and
right away medicines were brought, and some women made her
(21:04):
drink them. Her hands were hot, her forehead was burning,
her eyes were bright and sad. When I spoke to her,
she answered me, but I do not remember what we said.
I have forgotten everything everything. She died, and I very
(21:26):
well remember that last slight feeble sigh.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Oh it get over.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
What happened then, I hardly know, but I do know
that a priest came to my house, a priest who
meant well.
Speaker 4 (21:54):
But I am here to offer you what comfort I
can miss.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Year. There is no comfort. She was every to me.
I lived by the light of her eyes. I rose
in the morning, slept at night with no thought but
of her. She was my life, my heart. She was
your mistress.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Did you hear me, monsieur?
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Why do you stare at.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Me my mistress?
Speaker 3 (22:16):
You dare to call her my mistress? Only wanted youself her,
You wanted to grade her in my eyes? You dare
to call her my mistress? She was my sid did
not mean to you what could you possibly know of
a love like mine? Please? You'll make me sick. You
know nothing, You know nothing of life, So what can
(22:37):
you possibly know of deathlyse listen, you feel nothing, nothing
in your black robes. You descend like a vulture on
this house which was her home, the house she sanctified
with her presence, made holy, Yes, made holy, because she
condescended to live within its walls. None mighty, you're dare
(22:59):
to put an name to my darling, my best love,
my only love. I wanted only to dare to swell
her name. You you cheat, you sank Demonio's cheat. Leave
my house. I cannot endure your presence. Leave me to
my memories and my grief. Go and leave me alone.
Speaker 4 (23:19):
If you should need me, I shall not need you.
If you need God, I shall not need God.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
He has taken from me all that I ever needed
or wanted, So why should I need or want him?
Oh my, if you have any pity, go away and
leave me alone. Now you know I am father. Yes,
I treated you so badly. I'm heartily sorry. Father.
Speaker 4 (23:51):
I did not understand perhaps what this girl meant to you.
I should have had more.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Feeling, I should have had more patience what I did
to you that day. Father, that was not my only sin.
It was only the beginning of many, many sins. You
want to tell me if you will listen to my
miserable story, of course I will listen. They consulted me
about the funeral, but I do not remember anything that
(24:19):
they said, although I recollect the coffin and the sound
of the hammer when they nailed her down. Oh God, God,
I can try.
Speaker 4 (24:27):
To compose yourself, My sons, try to tell me the
rest of this sad story, if you can.
Speaker 3 (24:36):
She was buried, buried, she in that hole. Some people came,
female friends. I made my escape and ran away. I
ran and then walked through the streets. I went home,
and the next morning I left Paris and started on
(24:58):
a journey? Is that all? All? Is that all? No? No,
that is not all? No, what sins? What further sins?
Followed in the wake of my departure, you would scarcely believe.
But can you believe it? Wherever I went, her face
followed me. There were times, lying on some strange bed,
(25:21):
in some strange city, I would smell her perfume. It
would creep into the air like some celestial vapor, and
I would be absorbed into it until I myself vanished
and the scent took over.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
Do you understand the mystics have smelled the perfume of
roses when there were no roses go on.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Sometimes it was her voice falling upon my ear, shutting
out the street sounds, silencing the noise of cities, or
the singing of the birds in the country, or the
conversation of others. I heard only her sweet voice, her voice,
her voice, her voice, No other voice but hers, no
other face but hers, no other sense but hers, No
(26:07):
one anywhere but her.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Do you understand, father, I understand that you suffered just
a great deal.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Yes, yes, I suffered. But it is what I did
to ease my suffering, not that it was ever eased.
But what I did to try to shut out the
sight of her silence, the sound of her, stifle the
smell of her. The atrocities I committed, the opportunities I practiced,
(26:38):
the cruelties, All these I must confess to you if
I am ever to know peace again.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
To what lengths will men not go to ease the
agony of a tortured mind? What twisting and turning will
he not subject to his body.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Two or his mind? For both?
Speaker 2 (27:05):
There are drugs, he may try them. There is debauchery.
He may resort to that. He may even become a
criminal and drive himself to prison. Whatever he does, whatever
path he follows, he is seeking one thing only rest
for his troubled mind, peace for his suffering soul. I
(27:28):
shall continue with Act three. In just a few moments,
a man has sought out a particular priest to make confession,
A particular man who is blurting out the story of
(27:50):
his love for a young girl, a love to which
he dedicated everything he had, his worldly goods, his thoughts,
his life, himself.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
He lived by the light of her eyes.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Then one day she died. After the funeral, he went home,
packed the suit case and fled from Paris.
Speaker 3 (28:14):
It is what I did to ease my suffering by
not that it was ever eased. What I did to
shut out the sight of her silence, the sound of
her stifle, the smell of her, the atrocities I committed,
the obscenities I practiced, the cruelties I inflicted. Oh, my sweet.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Savior, you want to tell me now? I must can't
wait then, I am listening.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
I grew afraid to travel alone. I was afraid of
what I might do next. So I wrote to my
friend Henri, the same friend who had presented me to Simon,
urging him to meet me in Causablanca. Good friend that
he is, he agreed. We arranged to meet at the
sidewalk cafe. There. You are rie, It is you, isn't it?
(28:59):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Is?
Speaker 3 (29:00):
Sit down? But you look terrible? Nonsense? What do you
want to drink?
Speaker 4 (29:05):
And it's not nonsense? What have you been doing to yourself?
Speaker 3 (29:08):
I've been trying to forget her, ah, but this is
no way to forget her, My friend, what is the way?
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I don't know, but as.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
Just it, nobody knows. I don't know either know what
would you have to drink?
Speaker 4 (29:21):
They're drinking absent man'tu is that what you are? Heavens now, Pierre,
you are never like this?
Speaker 3 (29:27):
Well I am. Now what have you been doing? Oh?
This and that? What do you want to drink? Nothing?
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Nothing?
Speaker 3 (29:36):
I want another absent waiter? Where's the way to my friend? Please?
Don't do this. You know I covered the bazaars, the
clubs and the brothels of Kazabaka. The days there are
blurred in my memory. It's as though a man other
than myself did the things I did, And even those
(29:59):
things are vague, undefined, as though they happened in another time,
another place, to another person. At any rate, there came
a day when Ali burst into my hotel room. His
face was white and pinched, but his eyes blazed. Wake up,
wake up? What?
Speaker 4 (30:18):
What like the badge when leaving?
Speaker 3 (30:21):
Oh? What's the matter? All right, I'll do it for you.
What for? What is the matter?
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Or any couple of my friend?
Speaker 3 (30:27):
Bad couple?
Speaker 4 (30:28):
Where's this out?
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Came?
Speaker 3 (30:29):
What trouble? Don't you know? I don't trouble?
Speaker 4 (30:33):
You say you remember that girl last night?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
What girl? Which girl? Good lord?
Speaker 4 (30:38):
You don't even remember.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
The girl, the one you picked up at the nightclub?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (30:43):
Oh, you do remember that, don't you.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
I think you took her back to her room. Do
you remember?
Speaker 4 (30:48):
No, you don't remember. I can see you done well,
you did. I don't suppose you remember what you did
after that?
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Do you?
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I'll please?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Yeah, senus rotted your brain, my friend, you don't know
what do you do? And once you done it, you.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Don't remember it? Please? All right?
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Look at me, looked at we let go?
Speaker 3 (31:06):
I said, look at me, what what did I do?
You have killed that girl? Perhaps you did kill her.
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
She's in the hospital now. Perhaps you'll recover, Perhaps you won't.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
I did that? Why Heaven knows? Why would I do
a thing like that the moment?
Speaker 4 (31:23):
It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Why.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
What matters is that I'm going to take you home.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
I have no home to Paris. You have a house there.
It's a house, not home.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
And at least you'll have to raise to look after you,
feed you properly, and you'll have your own doctor, your priest.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
I can't tell him.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
You have to tell them.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yesterday I returned to Paris, and when I saw my
room again, our room, our bed. I'll venture everything that
remains of the life of a human being after death.
I will see by such a violent attack of fresh
grief that I felt like opening the window and throwing
(32:04):
myself out into the street. I could not remain any
longer among these things, between these walls which had enclosed
and sheltered her, which retained a thousand atoms of her,
out of her skin, out of her breath, in their
imperceptible crevices. I took up my hat to make my escape,
And just as I reached the door, I passed the
(32:27):
large glass in the foyer, which she had put there
so that she might look at herself every day from
head to foot. I stopped short in front of that
looking glass in which she had been so often reflected,
so often that it must have retained her reflection. I
was standing there, trembling, with my eyes fixed on the glass,
(32:51):
on that flat, profound, empty glass, which had contained her entirely,
and had possessed her as much as I I felt
as if I loved that glass.
Speaker 7 (33:06):
I touched it.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
It was cold. I stretched my arms around it, tried
to hold it close to me, to warm it with
my body, to make it live again. It was tall,
it was heavy, the strain to hold it close, close.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
And then, oh, no, what a mirror. But what happened, monsieur?
Speaker 1 (33:43):
Are you all right?
Speaker 4 (33:44):
I can't let let me help you. You're bleeding me.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
I'm all right, let me help you trying to move
the mirror.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Why didn't you call me.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
I'd have helped you.
Speaker 6 (33:58):
Oh, your poor faith, Oh, cutting leaving.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
I'll set you do. No, No, I don't need it.
I don't want. But it's only one thing I need
or want. If I can't have that, I want nothing
with you. Where you died, I went out without knowing,
without wishing it, and toward the cemetery I found her
(34:21):
simple grave, a white marble cross with these few words.
Speaker 7 (34:27):
She loved, was loved, and died. She is there below,
I thought, decayed.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
I sobbed with my forehead on the ground, and I
stayed there for a long time, a long time, And
then I saw that it was getting dark, and a
strange mad wish, the wish of a despairing lover seized me.
I wished to pass the night weeping on her grave.
But then I thought I would be seen and driven out.
(35:03):
How was I to manage? Oh? I was cunning, And
I got up and began to roam about in that
city of the dead.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I walked and walked.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Huh, how small the city is compared with the other,
the city in which we live, And yet how much
more numerous the dead are than the living. You are
right myself, Yes, yes, I'm all right. I must finish,
I must finish my story. I was alone, perfectly alone.
(35:33):
When it was quite dark, I began to walk softly, slowly,
inaudibly through that ground full of dead people. I wandered
about for a long time, but I could not find
her grave again. I went on with extended arms, knocking
against the tombs, my hands, my feet, my knees, my chest,
(35:54):
even with my head, Without being able to find her,
I groped like a blind man. I felt the stones,
the crosses, the iron railings. I read the names with
my fingers, by passing them over the letters. Or I
was frightened, horribly frightened. Graves. Graves is nothing but graves.
(36:20):
On my right I left in front of me, around me,
everywhere there were graves. I sat down on one of
them if I could not walk any longer. My knees
were so weak. I could hear my heart beat. Yes,
and I heard something else as well. What what a
(36:42):
confused nameless noise was the noise in my head in
the impenetrable night, or beneath the mysterious earth, the earth
sown with human corpses. I was paralyzed with terror, cold,
with fright, ready to shout out, ready to die, Yes,
to die on the moment, to die as had he
(37:03):
finished father. Suddenly it seemed to me, it seemed to
me that the slab of marble on which I sat
was moving, Yes, moving as if it were being raised
with a bound. I sprang under the neighboring tomb and
I saw, Yes, I distinctly saw the stone which I
(37:23):
had just quitted, rise upright. And then the dead person appeared,
a naked skeleton, pushing the stone back. I saw it
quite clearly, though the night was so dark. On the
headstone I had read, here lies Jacques Boulifont, who died
(37:47):
at the age of fifty one. He loved his.
Speaker 7 (37:50):
Family, was kind and honorable, and died in.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
The grace of the Lord. The dead man or his ghost,
picked up a stone off the path, a little pointed stone,
and he began to scrape the letters carefully. He slowly
effaced them, and with the hollows of his eyes he
looked at the place where they had been engraved, and then,
with the tip of the bone that had been his forefinger,
(38:16):
he wrote in luminous letters. I strained to see the
new words he was inscribing.
Speaker 6 (38:24):
Here lies Jack Cliva, who died at.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
The age of eeventy one.
Speaker 8 (38:31):
He hastened his father's chad by his unkindness, as he
wished to inherit his fortune. He tortured his wife, commented
his children, deceived his neighbors, robbed everyone.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
He could, and died wretched. The dead man stood motionless,
looking at his work. On turning around, I saw that
all the graves were open, but all the dead bodies
had emerged from them, and at all had effaced the
lines inscribed on the gravestones by their relations, substituting the
truth instead. The grave to my right, whose headstone had
(39:12):
read Marie Moussier, Devoted wife and mother, faithful friend, charitable neighbor,
dead at the age of eighty four, the skeleton of
an old woman was bent over it, and carefully writing
with her bony finger. The new words spoke solemnly in
a strange, quavering voice.
Speaker 6 (39:31):
No mucia go it scander around them, hated her, and
then too out. He clutched him there to children and
gowled me and speaking a war under world age.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
A little far behind me, another grave opened, and a
ghostly cigare emerged. His stone read a Foo Sparrow, merchant
and philanthrop most lies here mourned by all who loved
him for his many beneficent works.
Speaker 4 (40:05):
Par false fellow, imagined and unwilling philanthropist liars.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Hear moned by man who know his real reasons.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
But everything he did the breed, and he.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Makes of himself as one who loved his fellow man the.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Letter to steal of him. Behind the men, I saw
that all had been the tormentors of their neighbors, malicious, dishonest, hypocrites, liars, rogues,
that they had stolen and deceived, performed every disgraceful, every
abominable action. These good fathers, these faithful wives, these devoted sons,
(40:45):
these chaste daughters, these honest tradesmen, these men and women
who were called irreproachful, They were all writing on the
threshold of their eternal abode, the truth, the terrible and
the holy truth, of which everybody was ignorant or pretended
to be ignorant. They were alive.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
I sunned, almost finished, Father, I thought that she.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
She too, must to Britain something on her tombstone. Now
running without fear among the half open coffins, among the
corpses and the skeletons, I went toward her shore that
I should find her immediately. I recognized her at once,
without seeing her face, which was covered by the winding
sheet on the marble cross, where shortly before I had
(41:30):
read she loved, was loved, and died, where new words
words she now spoke aloud. Having gone out in the
rain one day in order to deceive her love, she
caught cold and died. Appears that they found me at daybreak,
(41:55):
lying on the grave of unconscious.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
But you must realize, poor man, that this was all
a delusion, the delusion of a fevered brain, a waking dream.
Oh no, no, it was all quite true that she
betrayed you, and not for.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
The first time. Father. I have always known it, I
have known it all along.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
There are truths which are impossible to face. There are
realities which can destroy us if we try to come
to grips with them before we are ready. Once grasped,
they become simpler, more treatable, even after a while commonplace.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
How long it takes to accept the unacceptable.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
That depends on the sufferer and the intensity of the
suffering he bears.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
I shall return shortly.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
We trust that Monsieur de Mopesow, from wherever he dwells
beyond the grave, will not think we have done violence
to his brief and fragile tale in trying to transpose
it into dramatic form. We have used some of his
own words, as many as possible, and more.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Of our own.
Speaker 2 (43:30):
If we have been unkind to his original work. We
ask his pardon and offer as an excuse our sincere
desire to prevent his beautiful story from slipping away from
us in the midst of time. Our cast included Norman Rose.
Speaker 3 (43:46):
Jadderal and Ralph bell E, v Jester and Guy Sorell.
The entire production was under the direction of.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
Hyman Brown.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
And now a preview of our next tale. The story
they told me Annie, I figured there wasn't much question with.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
What they see the thing. It's too bad.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
I figured I'd better come to you with it. Best
for you to decide what has to be done. Oh,
you done right. I'm just wondering that maybe it won't
have to go me ifore.
Speaker 3 (44:18):
It's settled up to you to decide that.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
I guess well, one thing I can tell you right now,
We've got to keep those two in town.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
We can't let them leave colony.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Keep them aw, Annie, they're itching to get on their
way right now, and we're gonna talk them into state.
You're the sheriff, Anger got a jail ancher.
Speaker 6 (44:40):
But Annie, you have to hold them bad, hold them
for what.
Speaker 4 (44:43):
Ain't no law against thinking? You saw a flying saucer,
who think of something? They can't be allowed to leave colony,
not alive. They can't.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
This is E. G.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, pleasant dreams,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.