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I Have Been Looking For You
Episode #2

I Have Been Looking For You

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5 of 11 people found this post helpful Posted 05/01/03 - 07:19:14:	#1
Announcer: The Mutual Broadcasting System presents the second of a series of dramatic stories written and directed by Wyllis Cooper, and featuring Ernest Chappell. In this week's story, "I Have Been Looking For You," we have as our guest the star of stage and radio Miss Claudia Morgan. Chappell: Quiet, please...Quiet, Please! [Theme music in and behind] Announcer: This week's story is entitled, "I Have Been Looking For You." [Theme music out] Man: I have been looking for you. Your name? [Music starts in background] I do not know your name. Perhaps you are Anitas[???], Allegia[???], or Bernice. You are Mary, or Alice, or plain Jane. You are Mercedes, Babushka, Collette...Where are you? [Music crescendo and then out] I heard your voice when I was a child. When I was new in school. When I was a tender lad, unknowing. [The following two are overlayed over one another starting at the asterisk] Man: I heard your voice as I passed the school room door. Woman: Seven times seven are forty-nine. Eight times seven are fifty-six. Nine times seven are sixty-three. Man: But I pushed to door ajar and looked, but there was only a school room full of children and a teacher at the desk. The cadence of your childish voice hung in the sunny air in the school room, but I couldn't find you. And wondering, dreaming, I closed the door. [sound of door closing] And went my way on to the confusion of another school room. But your voice was with me and I have not forgotten. [music up and behind] Many times I heard your voice, Love, as I grew older. There were other girls in my boyhood; sweet, cream-rinsed girls I remember now through the years. Helen with the yellow curls. Gladys, the tomboy, on her bicycle. Paula, in the library. Kate--dark. And Jenny. And crippled Margaret. And my playmates taunted me because I had no girl of my own. [music out] But I smiled a secret smile as I turned away and walked homeward along the elm shadowed, [music back behind] the flower sweet streets at night, for, always, you were somewhere. [Woman starts singing in the background] Man: And I knew I should find you one day, somewhere. [Woman stops singing, music up but still in background] Man: How many years have passed us now? How many summers? How many yesterdays? How many heartbeats? But I knew that I should find you. I saw you in the distance sometimes: a gay red bathing suit on a beach; a fluttering cotton scarf on a winter hillside against the snow. But, when I ran to greet you and call you mine, you were gone. You had vanished. [Music up and then into the background] Man: A day came when I was a young man and went away to make my fortune. My heart ached as the little station grew smaller in the distance, for I knew I saw you there, waving farwell. Was it to me? And I thought frantically of leaping from the train and returning, but a cloud of dust swirled up behind the train and when it was gone, you had vanished. There was another glimpse of you, I thought, as the train roared through another little town, and the gay crowd on the station platform waved and called. And I knew then. I knew that wherever I should go, you would be also. And tears came to my eyes as I thought, perhaps, I should never see your face, but always follow you and never catch up. [Music up and out] [4:10 into episode]

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5 of 10 people found this post helpful Posted 05/02/03 - 08:43:30:	#2
[The following two are overlayed over one another starting at the asterisk] Man: Yes, I was young for love, but I loved you then as I loved you that first day in school. Woman: Seven times seven... [sound of door closing] Man: And as I love you now.[??? that I have you???] [music up and out] Woman: I knew you followed me. I heard your footsteps down the summer-dark street; in the flickering of street lights sending shadows into the night. The stems of the lilacs [???] as though you had passed many a time... Why have I never seen your face? Or have I and just not known? Man: I love you. Woman: I have seen your shadow pass nightly here. I've heard the distant echo of your voice. And you were always near. My dreams have seen you, but you evade my seeking eyes. Do you remember a wide, white beach in Bombay? And the high, white clouds? You were alone. And I was alone. Man: I remember. Woman: I remember. I conjured you up out of the sound of the waves right then, and the rhythm of the surf was the beating of my heart. Man: And the sound of the wind in the dunes was your far-off laughter that I heard. Woman: I ran along the beach searching for you. Your [???] strong in my heart. And I cried out. I was heartsick. Then, I was afraid. I swam far out in the remorseless waves getting weary and hopeless for you. And the waves [???] and they bore me down. Then, like a dream, this long arm comes and I opened my eyes to the sun! And breathed. The salt on my lips, I thought, was not the salt of the sea, but the sting of a fading kiss. But you were gone, and I knew my life was worse and I was very unhappy... Man: ...for a little while... Woman: ...and very sad. Where did you go, Love? Man: I dreamed of you in the sea. I dreamed that you were struggling. And I dreamed that I swam out to you. And took you in my arms and brought you to the shore. And I kissed you. But there was darkness somewhere. Darkness that hid your face from me. And when I awoke, I, too, felt the salt of your lips on mine. Was I never to see you? Never to hold you in my arms in life? I sought to forget you. Forgive me, that. I thought that my mind was sick, that I dreamed in my waking hours. But which was the dream and which reality? [music up and behind] [7:00 into episode]

Paul
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5 of 10 people found this post helpful Posted 05/04/03 - 22:47:55:	#3
Correction to above (this forum doesn't seem to like to let me edit) This area: But you were gone, and I knew my life was worse and I was very unhappy... Man: ...for a little while... Woman: ...and very sad. Where did you go, Love? was actually this by my listen: But you were gone, and I knew my life was yours and I was very happy for a little while... and very sad. Where did you go, Love?" Continuation: And how could I escape the vision of you? Always I was haunted, tortured by the thought that you were near me. Around the corner perhaps, waiting with a smile of welcome when I should find you. Do you remember? You must. Woman: I remember. When did you walk down an avenue in the snow? The lights were golden from the windows [???] and the bells chimed softly in the twilight. The streets were filled with cheerful people hurrying hapily in the white light. And I was lonely. Until you hastened past me, a dim shape in the swirling snowflakes. And I followed you until you disappeared in the storm. The cheerful flat laughter of the people on the street mocked me again. Does this foolishness [???]. There's no one. I am alone. We shall never find each other. And when I wept in my sleep that night, it was your hand that wiped away my tears. Man: I dreamed of a woman [???], and I kissed her eyelids as she slept. Woman: You went away! Man: We were new to the war that Christmas season, and even as the reluctant bells rang in a new year, I went away. I remember the gloom cold station. I remember the unhappy sargent sheaperding two dozen [???] civilians away from the lights of the city, to the drafty cars that were to take them... somewhere. There were few to see us off that New Year's Eve. A policeman, who watched us silently as we straggled across the platform. And an old man, who offered us his [???] and mumbled of his days of the wars of [Sibune?] and San Juan and the girl he left behind him. And a group of belated communters, turning away from us to study the blackboard, with train arrivals chalked on it. And as they closed the doors of the coaches, a fat woman pounding on the window moulthing frantic goodbyes to a little man who turned away from her. But when our train began to move from the station, a glimpse of a woman standing alone under a dusty electric light on the platform. And then I knew as I remembered once before, that I could never wholly go away from you, that we belong to each other, though I might never see your face. [9:36]
_____________________ "Radio is a stage with a bare set. This is not a deprivation, but an advantage, for a bare proscenium should be as inviting to a radio playwright or director as a bare wall is to a muralist, as a silent organ was to Bach." - Norman Corwin

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6 of 11 people found this post helpful Posted 06/02/03 - 06:24:50:	#4
Continuation: Man: I was close to death many times in the war. At Justine Pass when John Sutherlund and I were alone one night with Rommel's armor on the other side of the hill. And at last we knew they were coming and one of us should stay while the other reported back. I was afraid to stay. So I argued with John in the petty pride of my terror saying I would stay while he should go back to what might be [??? beneath him ???]. But he was tired, he said, and I was not. And he would stay. And, so, I went and 20 [???] from him I heard the ABA [???] Woman: I spoke to him and told him to stay. Man: And I was wounded afterwards. That night I lay in the hospital tent and something happened. I knew I should die. I had no voice to call and in the last darkness before my senses left, a nurse came hurrying to my side. It was you, I thought. But when morning came, I saw the same familiar nurse I'd known for days. Woman: She was asleep and I awakened her. Man: Did you watch over me all those years? Was it your voice I sometimes heard in the still night? Have you loved me so? As I have loved you? Thoughtlessly? [music up and back] Man: I have been looking for you for so long...but such a time went by, such a long, weary time since I came home. Where were you, love? [music up and back] Man: There was one moment...I was standing on the deck when our troops came into the bay. I was looking for you. There were hundreds of boats around us. Boats with gay, painted signs welcoming some of us home. There was none for me. But I hoped that, perhaps, among all those who had come to meet their men in the harbor that there might be. [music up and back] Man: We were past the Statue of Liberty, nosing over to the North River where we were to come. And a ferry boat for Jersey cut across our bows. I merely glanced at it and I saw you. That was a happy moment for me. [music up and back] [12:06]

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5 of 10 people found this post helpful Posted 06/24/03 - 05:51:26:	#5
Continuation: Man: But when I came back from New York, when I took off my uniform and went back to work again, you were gone. I searched. I looked for you everywhere. Where were you? What had happened...to you? [music up and down] Woman: I saw you, love. I sat in a hospital where I could never get well. I heard the doctors talking and at night, sometimes, I called for you. But I knew you didn't hear me. The cord was broken. I couldn't reach you. I saw you many times. [Music up and down] Man: I had buried myself in my work, dear friend. Whatever the work was, I've forgotten. I've forgotten everything, except that I love you. And I've tried to forget that while I was afraid that you were gone from me forever and that I should never see you, never hear your voice again, never know your nearness as I had grown to know. I tried to lose the thought of you among seven millions of people. Among the high buildings and in the towns of the city around me and I almost succeeded. But then, I saw you. [Music up and down] Man: Do you remember where I saw you? [music up and back] In the very center of a town surrounded by men and women of a hundred races. In the midst of a babble of sound. In the midst of hysterical, never ending motion. In colors and [???] and flashing, searing light. It was a summer evening, hot and humid. [14:00]

MS
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2 of 4 people found this post helpful Posted 06/23/05 - 16:52:36:	#6
Here is the text from a twenty-page draft of the script for "I Have Been Looking For You." Bracketed text below does not appear in the original draft but is used either for clarification or to include material from the circulating recording. For some reason, the script includes no opening statements by the announcer. The recording begins with this introductory announcement: ANNOUNCER: The Mutual Broadcasting System presents the second of a series of unusual dramatic stories written and directed by Wyllis Cooper and featuring Ernest Chappell. In this week's story, "I Have Been Looking For You," we have as our guest, the star of stage and radio, Miss Claudia Morgan. ______________________________________ [title page] "I Have Been Looking For You" "QUIET, PLEASE" SUNDAY, June 15, 1947 3:30 - 4:00 PM EDST RECORDING: 8:00 PM - 12:00 MIDNIGHT JUNE 10, 1947 BY WYLLIS COOPER [page 1] (MUSIC ... THEME ... FADE FOR) CHAPPELL: Quiet, please! (MUSIC ... THEME ... FADING) CHAPPELL: Quiet, please! FADE IN: MAN: I have been looking for you. Your name? I do not know your name. Perhaps you are Anaitas, or Ligeia, or Berenice. You are Mary, or Alice, or plain Jane. You are Mercedes, Libushka, Colette. Where are you, love? * * * * * * * * * * * * I heard your voice when I was a child, when I was new in school, when I was a tender lad, unknowing: I heard your voice -as I passed a schoolroom door. GIRL: Seven times seven are forty-nine; eight times seven are fifty-six; nine times seven are sixt-- SOUND: (A DOOR CLOSES, SHUTTING OUT THE VOICE) MAN: But I pushed the door ajar, and looked, and there was only a schoolroom full of children, and a teacher at a desk. The cadence of your childish voice hung in the sunny air in the schoolroom, but I couldn't find you: and wondering, dreaming, I closed the door.... SOUND: (THE DOOR CLOSES -VERY GENTLY) MAN: and went my way on to the confusion of another school room. But your voice was with me, and I have not forgotten. Many times I heard your voice, love, as I grew older. There were other girls in my boyhood; sweet, clean-limbed girls I remember now through the years. [2] Helen with the yellow curls; Gladys the tomboy on her bicycle; Paula in the library; Kate and Dorothy and Janet, and crippled Margaret...and my playmates taunted me because I had no girl of my own. But I smiled a secret smile as I turned away and walked homeward along the elm-shadowed, the flower-sweet streets at night, for always you were somewhere. SOUND: (A GIRL'S VOICE SINGING IN THE DISTANCE BRIEFLY "BEAUTIFUL DREAMER.") MAN: and I knew I should find you one day, somewhere. How many years have passed us, love? How many summers, how many yesterdays, how many heartbeats? But I knew that I should find you. I saw you at a distance sometimes: a gay red bathing suit on a beach; a fluttering tartan scarf on the winter hillsides against the snow, but when I ran to greet you and call you mine you were gone, you had vanished. I know the touch of your hand, for I felt it cool on my forehead that time when I lay fevered and thought of death at seventeen. I know the sound of your footsteps, love, for I have heard them many times. A day came when I was a young man and SOUND: (A TRAIN WHISTLE AND THE SOUND OF A TRAIN IN THE BACKGROUND) MAN: went away to make my fortune. My heart ached as the little station grew smaller in the rapid distance, for I knew I saw you there waving farewell - was it to me? - and I thought frantically of leaping from the train and returning to you. But a cloud of dust swirled up behind the train and when it was gone..you had vanished. [3] There was another glimpse of you, I thought, as the train roared through another little town, and a gay crowd on the station platform waved and called. And I knew then: I knew that wherever I should go you would be, always. And tears came to my eyes as I thought perhaps I should never see your face, but always follow you, and never meet. Yes, I was young for love, but I loved you then as I loved you that first day in school. GIRL: Seven times seven SOUND: (AND A DOOR CLOSES) MAN: and as I love you now that I have found you. (MUSIC: ... TO INTRODUCE) WOMAN: I knew you followed me. I heard your footsteps down the summer-dark streets, with the flickering old street-lights scattering shadows under the lilac-bushes; and the scent of the lilacs has brought you back to me so many times, my love. Why have I never seen your face? Or have I? Tell me. MAN: I love you. WOMAN: I have seen your shadow past my window. I have heard the distant echo of your voice. SOUND: (AN ECHO OF A MAN'S VOICE) WOMAN: and you were always near. My dreams have seen you, but you evade my seeking eyes. Do you remember a wide white beach on a summer's day? (MUSIC: ... THE SOUND OF SURF AND WIND) WOMAN: and the high white clouds, and you were alone and I was alone? [4] MAN: (SOFTLY) I remember. WOMAN: I remember. I conjured you up out of the sound of the waves on the sand, and the rhythm of the surf was the beating of my heart. MAN: And the sound of the wind in the dunes was your far off laughter that I heard. WOMAN: And I ran along the beach searching for you, for your presence was strong in my heart, and I cried out; I was heartsick for you. Then I was afraid. I swam far out into the remorseless waves, seeking you. I became weary and hopeless for you, and the waves fought me, and they bore me down. Then I dreamed there were strong arms about me, (MUSIC: ... THE WAVES AGAIN) WOMAN: and I opened my eyes to the sun (MUSIC: ... ARPEGGIOS) WOMAN: and breathed again; and the salt on my lips, I thought, was not the salt of the sea, but the sting of a fading kiss. But you were gone. Then I knew my life was yours, and I was very happy for a little while ... and very sad. Where did you go, love? MAN: I dreamed of you in the sea; I dreamed that you were struggling, and I dreamed that I swam out to you and took you in my arms and brought you to the shore, and I kissed you. But there was darkness somewhere: darkness that hid your face from me. And when I awoke I too felt the salt of your lips on mine. [5] Was I never to see you? Never to hold you in my arms in life? I sought to forget you; you must forgive me that. I thought that my mind was sick, that I dreamed in my waking hours. But which was the dream, and which reality? And how could I escape the vision of you? Always I was haunted, tortured by the thought that you were near me ... around a corner, waiting perhaps with a smile of welcome when I should find you. Do you remember? You must remember. WOMAN: (SOFTLY) I remember. When did you walk down an avenue in the snow? The lights were golden from the windows that Christmastime, and the bells chimed softly in the twilight, I remember. The streets were filled with cheerful people, hurrying happily in the white darkness, and I was lonely. Until you hastened past me, a dim shape in the swirling snowflakes. And I followed you until you disappeared in the storm, and the cheerful flat laughter of the people on the street mocked me again. But this is foolishness, I said. There is no one. I am alone; we shall never find each other. And when I wept in my sleep that night, it was your hand that wiped away my tears. MAN: I dreamed of a woman weeping, and I kissed her eyelids as she slept. WOMAN: You went away. [6] MAN: We were new to the war that Christmas season, and even as the reluctant bells rang in a new year, I went away. I remember the gloomy cold station at midnight. I remember the unhappy sergeant shepherding two dozen motley civilians away from the lights of the city to the drafty cars that were to take us ... somewhere. There were few to see us off that New Year's Eve. A policeman who watched us silently as we straggled across the platform. And an old man who offered us his bottle and mumbled of his days at the wars: of Siboney and San Juan and the girl he left behind him. A group of belated commuters, turning away from us to study the blackboard with "train arrivals" chalked on it. And as they closed the doors of the coaches, a fat woman, pounding on the window, mouthing frantic good-byes to a little man who turned away from her. And when our train began to move from the station, a glimpse of a woman standing alone under a dusty electric light on the platform. Then I knew, as I remembered once before, that I could never wholly go away from you. That we belonged to each other, though I might never see your face. (MUSIC: ... BRIEFLY) MAN: I was close to death many times in the war. At Kasserine Pass, when John Sutherland and I were alone one night, with Rommel's armour on the other side of the hill we were to watch. At last we knew they were coming, and one of us was to stay while the other went back in the darkness with the message. [7] I was afraid to stay, but I argued with John in the petty pride of my terror, saying I would stay while he should go back to what might mean safety for a little while. But he was tired, he said, and I was not, and he would stay. And so I went, and twenty steps away from him I heard the eighty-eight that smashed him into nothingness. WOMAN: I spoke to him and told him he must stay. MAN: And I was wounded afterward. That night I lay in the hospital tent, and something happened, and I knew I should die. I had no voice to call, and in the last blackness before my senses went a nurse came hurrying to my side. It was you, I thought, but when morning came I saw the same familiar nurse I had known for days. WOMAN: She was asleep, and I awakened her. MAN: Did you watch over me all those years? Was it your voice I sometimes heard in the still night? Have you loved me so, as I have loved you? What must we do? (MUSIC: ... BRIEFLY) MAN: I have been looking for you for so long. But such a time went by. Such a long, weary time since I came home. Where were you, love? There was one moment. I was standing on the deck when our transport came up the Bay. I was looking for you. There were hundreds of boats around us: boats with great painted signs welcoming some of us home. [8] There was none for me; but I hoped that perhaps among all those who had come to meet their men in the harbour that there might be ... you. We were past the Statue of Liberty, nosing over to the North River where we were to dock, and a ferry boat from Jersey cut across our bows. I merely glanced at it: and I saw you. That was a happy homecoming. But, when I came back to New York, when I took off my uniform and went to work again You were gone. I searched for you. I looked for you everywhere. Where were you? What had happened? Two years went by. WOMAN: I saw _you_, love. They said in the hospital that I would never get well. I heard the doctors talking. And at night, sometimes, I talked to you. But I knew you didn't hear me. The cord was broken. I couldn't reach you. I saw you many times. And then -- (MUSIC: ... ARPEGGIOS) MAN: I had buried myself in my work, they said. Whatever the work was, I have forgotten. I have forgotten everything, except that I love you. And I tried to forget that, for I was afraid that you were gone from me forever, and I should never see you, never hear your voice again, never know your nearness as I had grown to know it. I tried to lose the thought of you among seven millions of people. Among the high buildings and in the sounds of the city around me. And I almost succeeded. But then, I saw you. (MUSIC: ... ACCENT) MAN: Do you remember where I saw you? In the very center of the town; surrounded by men and women of a hundred races. (MUSIC: ... FOR THE CITY) MAN: In the midst of a babel of sound, in the midst of hysterical, never ending motion; in colours and darkness and flashing, searing lights! It was a summer evening. Hot and humid. VOICE: (SHARP FILTER) United States Weather Bureau forecast for New York City and vicinity. Seven pm temperature ninety-one; humidity eighty-seven per cent. This evening scattered thundershowers, becoming general before nine o'clock. Strong westerly winds. MAN: And the threat of lightning and sullen thunder in the clouds that towered over the Jersey highlands. [10] (MUSIC: ... THUNDER) MAN: The voice of the storm quickened, rumbling over the squalling sound of the city, and the lightning crackled in the West. I was on my way home after a sodeen [sic, sodden] day in a tiny office above Times Square...one of the beaten, hungry millions at the end of a colourless, unhappy day. The subway...crowds... (MUSIC: ... ) SOUND: (SUBWAY) MAN: The guards, pushing the milling crowds into the airless, stuffy cars...the train starting, far underground, where only blind animals should live (MUSIC: ... ACCELERANDO IN SUBWAY RHYTHM) MAN: bodies pressed against feverish bodies..tired eyes looking inwardly toward the comforts of home and cool drinks and blessed rest. Outside the windows walls too close, sweating and dank with moisture; the sudden flash of stations as we roar through them...more and more speed...bodies swaying against bodies...suffocation, and the sudden fear that comes like a clutching nightmare deep underground. VOICE 1: We're going too fast. VOICE 2: Where are we? VOICE 3: (SCREAMS) (MUSIC: ... PICKS UP AND FADES SWIFTLY BEHIND) [11] MAN: Streams of blue sparks outside the open windows ... the acrid smell of burning rubber ... swift panic, clutching hands ... futile fists beating screaming faces ... the scream of tortured brakes ... lights flickering, dying, and in the last seconds before the crash SOUND: (A CRASH. VOICES CRYING IN THE BACKGROUND) (MUSIC: ... ) SOUND: (FADE ALL EXCEPT MUSIC) MAN: You. (MUSIC: ... ENDS) MAN: I saw you. I had turned, I remember, to escape a man's fingers clawing at my eyes. I saw you (MUSIC: ... FOR ACCENT) MAN: inches away from me, yet a continent away. Blond hair rippling in the fetid breeze; red lips apart, not in fear but in rapt excitement, almost smiling. I shouted your name - did I know your name? - and then.... Darkness. (MUSIC: ... LIKE A DEEP A C HUM) MAN: You knew, didn't you? You saved my life again. DOCTOR: You said you turned your head just as the crash came. MAN: Yes, I turned my head. To look at you. DOCTOR: The steel rod just grazed your forehead. If you hadn't turned your head - MAN: I looked at You. DOCTOR: It was providential, young man. [12] MAN: It was You. (MUSIC: ... UP FULL, HOLD, AND FADE FOR) WOMAN: I knew you were there. Among all those scores of frightened, screaming men and women I knew you were there. And I saw you. In the last flickering of the lights I saw you. And then you were gone. Forever, I thought. I thought you died in the subway wreck. For long months you were dead to me. My mind refused to think of you. I could not picture your face again. But now I know I was near you many times. I entered a restaurant as you left it. MAN: I left the elevator at the fourteenth floor one day. WOMAN: I got on at the fifteenth. MAN: I turned to look in a shop-window as you passed by. WOMAN: I picked up a book at Bretano's that you had just laid down. And I knew, I think. MAN: The 'bus driver gave me change that had come from your purse. And I knew. WOMAN: You sat behind me at a Brailowsky concert at Carnegie Hall. And I dreamed that night. MAN: The telefone-booth at Grand Central. Your perfume still was there. (MUSIC: ... TO A FINISH AND WAIT) WOMAN: All those long months. Years. There were long times when I never saw you; times, I am afraid, when I all but forgot you. [13] And then I'd see a picture in a newspaper: a happy group celebrating something at some night-club - and there were you, there was your face, dim and smudged with ink, half-turned away from me in the background - and I was off again. Off to walks in the park, hoping to hear footsteps that had grown familiar through the long years. Off to a pub-crawl along Third Avenue, drinking at Tim Costello's and P. J. Clarke's, listening for the cadence of a voice that might, somehow, be there. Off on the top of a Fifth Avenue 'bus, off on the Staten Island ferry, or an expedition through the theatre crowds at curtain-time. Ah, my love, I have looked for you. I said I never knew your name. I'd lay awake nights, those times, and go over all the girls' names I ever heard of: Alice, Barbara, Claudia, Doris, Elisabeth, Frances ...down through Wilhelmina and Yvonne and Zoe. I'd make resolutions to forget you. I went out with other girls. I tried to put you out of my mind. But I found myself becoming bored with other girls. I looked for you in them, and I became short of speech, quarrelsome, and no girl ever went out with me twice. I kept to myself more and more. More and more time in Central Park - till the very ice-cream vendors greeted me as an old acquaintance. [14] More and more time along Fifth Avenue late at night - up past the Cathedral, down past the Empire State; hoping, listening, peering anxiously at every woman I passed. I went away on long trips by myself to escape the thought of you - and heard your distant laughter, or thought I saw you framed in the window of a train that passed mine, going in the other direction. SOUND: (A TRAIN GOES BY) MAN: I didn't sleep much. Nights I came home as late as I could, staggering for lack of sleep. I closed the door. SOUND: (DOOR CLOSES) MAN: and shut the city out from me. I was afraid to sleep. I was afraid of The Dream. (MUSIC: ... SINISTER CHORDS) MAN: The Dream that came so often. (MUSIC: ... FOR BACKGROUND) MAN: An empty room. Dark, high walls. A little flight of stairs leading to an open door. Beyond the door a dazzling light. And silence. (MUSIC: ... STOPS) MAN: The light draws me to the flight of steps and the open door. My voice echoes in the silence of the gloomy room, [15] (ECHO) Where are you, love? Where are you? WOMAN: (AFTER A PAUSE) I am here, love. (DISTANT) MAN: You are there, beyond the door, in the room where the light shines. Your shadow falls across the flight of steps. You are only twenty paces away. I move toward the door. (MUSIC: ... ) SOUND: (WITH FOOTSTEPS) MAN: One step; two; three- and a cobweb brushes my eyes. SOUND: (FOOTSTEPS BECOME SLOWER) MAN: Your voice again. WOMAN: (FARTHER AWAY) Come to me, love. MAN: Another step, and - is that a hand on my shoulder? I turn to see: the room is empty. Another step - I can go no farther. I struggle, but there is something that holds me back, and a voice that whispers in my ear. VOICE: (WHISPER) Not yet. Not yet. MAN: I fight against the force that holds me, but I cannot move. What is beyond the door where the light is? Do you wait for me? Why cannot I reach you, love? WOMAN: (FAR AWAY) Hasten, come to me, love. MAN: I cannot move. I call to you. (ECHO) Help me! Come to me! WOMAN: (FAR OFF) Come to me - MAN: And with the sound of a great gong in my ears SOUND: (GONG) MAN: I awake, trembling, and you are gone. I lie awake until the gray dawn crawls through the windows. (MUSIC: ... FOR AN ACCENT) [16] WOMAN: The Dream came to me last night. A great bright room; a light that dazzles my eyes, and I cannot move. A door that leads ...to darkness. And footsteps beyond the door, in the dark. I am frightened until I hear your voice. MAN: (ECHO) Where are you, love? WOMAN: And I answer, and then I know your footsteps, coming to me from the darkness into the light that dazzles me. SOUND: (THE FOOTSTEPS APPROACH) WOMAN: But the footsteps end; and the light burns my eyelids, and the great gong sounds SOUND: (GONG) MAN: My hand was on the very lintel of the door, and the radiance of the light within struck my eyes and blinded me, and again I awoke, trembling... Did this mean that I was soon to find you? Am I to see you, to hold you in my arms? What will I dream tonight? (MUSIC: ... FOR AN ACCENT) MAN: I slept a little, and The Dream did not return. It was raining when I awoke; a quiet summer's rain, and the light in the streets was the colour of the light in the room beyond the door. Is that a sign? Is this the day? (MUSIC: ... FOR AN ACCENT) [17] WOMAN: It is raining. I dreamed of a voice that I know. I asked him to come to me. Is this the day? Is the dream a message from somewhere to tell me that this is the day? I dress hastily when I see that it is already eight o'clock. Perhaps I shall meet him today: I shall wear my new scarlet raincoat. I will know him when I see him; will he know me? Downstairs; outdoors; rain. Good luck - a taxicab. SOUND: (TAXICAB) WOMAN: Shall I meet him today? (MUSIC: ... BG) MAN: Who says the rain is dismal? This is the day. I know this is the day. I shall walk to the office: who knows, I may meet her on the way? I smile at strangers as I stroll through the pelting rain down Madison Avenue. Here is a young couple: lovers. I, too, am a lover - and today I shall meet my beloved. And then - the fulfillment of all my dreams from the time of my childhood, so very long ago. I step down from the curb. Sixty-eighth Street. Traffic has stopped before the upraised hand of the policeman in the middle of the street. I smile at him, and I do not see the taxicab. [18] SOUND: (TAXICAB SOUND FOLLOWS THE NARRATIVE) MAN: careening around the corner against the lights, the driver frantically tugging at his wheel - very slowly, it seemed to me - and the cab coming straight at me. And as I looked up, the cruel wheels half a foot from me -- You! (MUSIC: ... THE CRASH) MAN: And then, the Room. SOUND: (FOOTSTEPS SLOWLY) MAN: The dark room; with the little stairs, and the door, and the [dazzling light beyond. Nothing holds me back now. I go forward to the door and the] light welcomes me. I know you are there, love. In a moment we shall meet. We shall kiss. We shall begin our life together, shall we not? (PAUSE) Shall we not? (MUSIC: ... ARPEGGIOS) MAN: Love, where are you? WOMAN: Love, I am here, with you forever. (MUSIC: ... FOR A LONG ACCENT AND FADE FOR) MAN 2: Yes, indeed. Right through here SOUND: (FOOTSTEPS) MAN 2: mind the little stairs, and through the door. Yes, it is bright in here. But we have to be able to see very well in here. SOUND: (FOOTSTEPS HALT) [19] MAN 2: This is the one: the man that was killed by the taxicab. No, there was no identification at all. This one? This was the woman, the passenger in the cab. She died of a heart attack at the very instant. No, no identification for her, either. Yes, it is strange. Both of them smiling as if they were the happiest people in the world. (MUSIC: ... UP AND FADE FOR) MAN: Together, love... WOMAN: Together, forever. (MUSIC: ... THEME..AND FADE FOR) ANNCR: You have listened to "I've Been Looking For You", [sic] the second in the series "Quiet, Please" which is written and directed by Wyllis Cooper. Ernest Chappell was the man who talked to you. CHAPPELL: And [our guest] Claudia Morgan was the woman. [Thank you, Claudia, for being with us.] Others in the cast were Peggy Stanley, J Swayne [sic] Gordon, and [Martin Wolfson.] The music was composed and played by Gene Perazzo. And now for a word about next week's "Quiet Please" story, here is our writer-producer, [sic] Wyllis Cooper. [Bill?] COOPER: For next week I have written you a fantastic story which I hope may give you to think, as well as entertain you. Its title is "We Were Here First." CHAPPELL: So, until next week at this time - quietly yours, Ernest Chappell. (MUSIC: ... THEME...AND FADE FOR) [20] ANNCR: This program came from New York. (PAUSE) Stay tuned now for a fascinating story of strange events and their commonsense explanation on the House of Mystery which follows in just a moment. This is the Mutual Broadcasting System. (MUSIC: ... THEME TO FINISH)

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