Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

How selfish she had been! She had accepted everything, hut gave nothing in return, never realizing that true happiness must he paid for with sorrow rTH!E second time | we were out to agether, Eric told mc he loved me. I laughed a1 him i ,,,, hed because uddenly I found myaell wanting to believe How do you know?" ild i ed i"", end passed off my laughti i . bul Hi. re wai b stubborn I to I" i '■■■ '' I "■'•■ " '" "ll in hi di . i oe "1 think about you ,,„, ■ ., ol ii" time, and I'm always n, ., hmi v when I'm going to see i i,,,, ,,, ... nol mean anything particularly," I i Bid "But ii does You'll know it does, after w tort led " At the wiini "man led" ted \ i h 'in ally, l Baid, "I'm not ,,,., to mai 1 1 inyone for a long time. Maj bi nevei tei iftei Erli had b tit m home to the house where i lived with my father, 1 didn't feel like lie 10 I went out into the ,.,u,i, ,, ,,,,i ,, , , bench there, thinking Thinking, l must admit, He was tall and dork, and when he moved there was ,1,1,1 ,.,,, po etui ibout him. Not ice, but a kind of miiwmy of movement, so th.it alter a while it ,,, to watch him, And I liked the way his mind worked, and his and the way he talked, r.ui i don'l want to marry him," my i and over, "i u don't want to marry anyone. I couldn't entirely understand it, myself. Perhaps a psychologist could have found a name for this deep inner reluctance to surrender myself to another person. It was an emotional reluctance, much more than a physical one. Ever since I was a little girl — ever since I had seen my father's soul wither and shrink inside him when my mother ran away with another man — I had said to myself, "It must never happen to me. I must never put my happiness into the hands of anyone but myself, to crush and throw away." Other people could do such dreadful things to you. They could invade your life, change it, soil it. Even a marriage which did not end in a tragedy like that of my father's could become sordid, weary. In fact, it seemed to me, most marriages settled into a routine of what someone had once called "quiet desperation." They became treadmill affairs, as colorless as a prison. When at last I left the garden, that night, and went into the house, my resolution not to let myself marry Eric was unchanged. But all the same, I could not keep the world from being a different place from then .on. The summer was more glorious, the sun shone more brightly, the birds sang more loudly. And although I refused to go out with Eric the next time he called, and the time after that, it seemed I could not avoid him. Written by John was suggested by an original radio script first broadcast on Kate Smith's CBS Variety Program heard Friday nights. Wherever I went in our little Connecticut town, sooner or later he was there too, looking at me with a challenging expression that said, "Haven't you changed your mind yet? But you will." I tried going out with him when he asked me, just to prove to myself that I was not afraid of him, and for two weeks we were together every evening, driving in his car, dancing somewhere, going into the city to the theater. And the atmosphere between us became like the atmosphere over a valley just before the thunderstorm breaks. Something was going to happen, and I had stopped trying to avoid it. I wanted it to happen. He brought me home late one evening, after Father had gone to bed. He opened the door of the car on his side and walked around to let me out. He put his arm around ntt tightly. I could feel the hardness of his body and the insistence of M* arm, and I said breathlessly, "Goc? night, Eric." But he shook his head. "I'm hungry, Maggie. Do you suppose you could find something RADIO AND TIUOTUOM »»* to eat in your kitchen?" The kitchen was warm and bright and smelled good. We pulled out the Pots and pans and made some scrambled eggs. I made toast. Then we found a bottle of milk and I poured two big glasses. . Afterwards we went into the liv">g room and played the phonograph softly. There was one record *e Played, a song of Brahms', that 1 <*n still heai whenever I think of that moment. E"o put on a record, then came and sat beside me on the sofa. The light was behind him, so that his big ears looked bigger than they were. "Maggie?" he said. "Yes?" The music flowed along. He kissed me. Very hard very close I could feel his heart beating I could feel his head rough against my face. I could feel the bones in it, and the ^ h» beard . . . When he let me go, the light in the room was hazy. "Will you marry me, Maggie? he said The words were quick and wky as though they were torn Sm him against his wi... I can st..l He kitted me yery hard, very clot: I could feel Eric's heart beating. hear them, with that song filling the stillness behind them. "Yes," I whispered. "Yes! Yes!" Two weeks later wc were married. My father gave us furniture, ■•"•t Eric's family, out in Indiana, sent some lovely old jewelry to mother came on for the wedding Eric had a good job, so we started out well— a nice house, a good car, everything I could want. For months and months I lOVIW it. Our house was new and pretty, I liked the novelty of housework, the trips to the village to meet Kr Ic at the train and to do the shopping Our friends all thought it was wonderful. I roniinued cm page 53 15