 I am an old man, not as old as the sea, but old enough. I can hear the surf hammering at the beach near my house on the coast of France. Can you hear it? No, of course not. You are far away. That's an old man's joke. But it's there. The sound is there. It's the sound of a people who are waiting for you. The Nazis cannot hear anything in the silence of the sea, nor do they understand what this silence means. They do not understand what the surf says to us as it comes into the beach over and over again. No, they do not understand that it says to us, be patient, be silent, be of good heart. We in America are coming to help you. America is coming to help you. America is coming to help you. The National Broadcasting Company, in cooperation with the Council on Books and Wartime, presents the 45th in its series Words at War. Tonight we bring you a radio adaptation of a novel that was written in Nazi-occupied France. It is entitled The Silence of the Sea, the story of an old Frenchman and his niece, and of the German officer billeted in their house. The old man tells the story, starting from the day the Nazi officer comes to occupy a room in his house. I remember it was night, but not very cold. All that November it was never very cold. My niece had just brought me my coffee. Coffee helps me to sleep, as she did every evening. I was sitting in the back of the room in comparative darkness facing the door. My niece looked at me and put down her cup. I kept mine in my house. My niece went to the door. The Nazi officer, tall, massive, stood in the doorway. He seemed to be gauging the depth of the silence that awaited him. Then he came in. My name is Werner von Ebrannach. I'm extremely sorry. My niece was leaning against the wall looking straight in front of her. I didn't get up. The silence deepened like a live thing between us. It had to be done, of course. I would have avoided it if I could. I would do my best not to disturb you. The silence was unbroken. It grew closer and closer like the morning mist. It was thick and motionless. The immobility of my niece and for that matter my own made it even heavier. Turned it to lead. The officer stood without moving till at last I saw the beginning of a smile on his lips. I could go up to my room now, but I don't know the way. My niece turned and went up the stairs and the officer followed her. I noticed that he was lame in one leg. I heard him going up the stairs. Then my niece came back. She picked up her cup and went on drinking her coffee. The next evening he came back at the same time as before. I'm afraid I'm disturbing you. If you would rather I will come in from the kitchen then you can keep the door locked. I wish you a very good night. The surf pounded into the beach again and again eternally, relentlessly, silently. Like the sea we would not compromise. We would not give in. So when the officer asked us to lock our door, well we never did. By a silent agreement my niece and I had decided to make no changes in our life. Not even in the smallest detail as if the officer didn't exist. As if he had been a ghost. A long time for more than a month the officer came back at the same time and the same scene would take place. He would talk. We would sit there in our living room as if he were not there. Then he would bow and say, I wish you a very good night. But one evening there was a change. Everything changed abruptly. Outside a fine snow mixed with rain was falling, terribly cold and damping. On the hearth I was burning the heavy logs which I kept especially for nights like this. Then he came. Excuse me, I'm feeling cold. I got wet through and my room was very chilly. I would warm myself at your fire for a few minutes. He crouched by the fire and his eyes rested on my niece. He looked at her for a long time. Then he looked away. I'm a musician. My niece went on with her knitting. Another performer. I'm a composer. That's my whole life. And so it's comical for me to see myself as a man of war. Yet I don't regret this war. No, I think that great things will come of it. Oh, forgive me, I may have said something to hurt you. But I will say what I think. And it's a sincere good feeling. I feel it because of my love of France. Great things will come of it for Germany and for France. I think that the sun is going to shine over Europe. I wish you a very good night. From that day his visits took on a new shape. Very rarely indeed did we see him in uniform. He used to change first and then knock on our door. Then he would come in without waiting for the answer which he knew he would not give. He would warm himself for the fire. Then he would talk of all the things that obsessed his mind. Then he would be silent, bow to us, wish us a good night. One day he said, What is the difference between the fire and my home, this one here, and the books and the shelves there? Why am I so fond of this room? It's not particularly beautiful. Excuse me, I mean to say it's not particularly beautiful. Oh, excuse me, I mean to say it's not a museum piece. But take your furniture. It does not take one's say what lovely things. No. And yet this room has a soul. All this house has a soul. Yes, Vener von Ebrannach. This house has a soul. And it is full of ghosts too. Can you not hear them in our silence? Listen. Excuse me, Vener von Ebrannach. Are you thinking that they were written by men like me, men who are now dead at your hands, men who love the books you caress now? Yes. Look at those books and name their names. Balzac, Bomache, Cornet, Descartes, Flaubert, Hugo, what a roll call. And there will be other names, other books. Kill us all. No, von Ebrannach. You can't kill us all and you can't destroy our work or our names or our memory or our books. Did you think you destroyed us when you burned the books that day in May in 1933 in Germany? You cannot destroy our work. Know the work of any man who has written in good faith. Think of that, von Ebrannach, as you caress the books. Ghosts. Don't you hear them, von Ebrannach? You only hear the sound of your own voice in our silence. When it comes to music, then it's our turn. Machhende, Deton, Wagner, Mozart. Which name comes first? Which name comes first? There are ghosts in this house von Ebrannach. Don't you hear them? Which name comes first? Can you forget Bisey, Offenbach, Meier Bayer, who studied and worked in France? Can you forget Maurice Revelle and Milo and Sasson, Debussy, Mahler and Mendelssohn? Or do you remember only the ugly voice snarling? The button! The button! You can stop the music. Which name comes first? Does it matter? You think you can take the culture of a nation by the throat and choke it to death? Choke it into silence? Don't you see? We are here all around you. Our writers, our musicians. You're living in the dead, but silence has spore... Around you, von Ebrannach. But all you can hear in the silence is the sound of your own voice. Now we have war, but this is the last time. We won't fight each other anymore. We'll get married, Germany and France. Here's when we entered Saint. I was happy that the population received us well. I was very happy. I thought, this is going to be easy. Then I saw that it was not that at all. It was cowardice. Oh, I despise these people. And for France's sake, I was afraid. I thought, has she really got like that? Oh, no. I have seen her since. Now I'm happy at her stern expression. He was looking at my niece at her closed obstinate delicate profile. She continued knitting, and he continued his monologue. I'm happy to have found here an elderly man with some dignity. And a young lady who knows how to be silent. We've got to conquer the silence. We've got to conquer the silence of all France. I'm glad of that. Conquer this silence? Perhaps you have forgotten the day when the hostages were ordered to the square to listen to a speech. But we have not forgotten. Dad, they hurt you. No, we have not forgotten. When the hostages were lined up and the speech turned out to be. Conquer such a silence? The next day, and many days like them, at the funeral, everyone looked at the woman who was crying alone. And when she saw that she was alone in her crying, she stopped. And she was no longer alone in the silence of that graveyard. Conquer such a silence? I looked deep into the eyes of Fenebrenach into the eyes of this refined, cultured gentleman who was now smiling at my niece and said, We've got to conquer the silence of all France. I wish you a very good night. One evening, Fenebrenach played the piano. Perhaps it's an accompaniment to his interminable monologues. Perhaps with the thought that we could meet on this common ground that for once we would answer, that for once we would speak. There's nothing greater than that music. Yes, it's in human music. He could only be a German. Our country has the character. That inhuman character. I mean by inhuman, that which is on a different scale to man. I thought to myself, inhuman, yes. And I do what I meant by inhuman. That kind of music. I love it, I admire it. It overwhelms me. It's like the presence of God in me, but it's not my own. For my part, I would like to compose music which is on the scale of man. That also is a road by which one can reach the truth. That's my road. I don't want to follow any other. Besides, I couldn't. That I know now. I know it to the full. Since when? Since I have lived here. I ask a great deal. I ask a welcome from her. I looked at my niece. She pulled her eyes away from him as if with a great effort and busied herself with her knitting. Sincertives bound to overcome all obstacles. I wish you a very good night. I can't remember today everything that was said during the course of more than a hundred winter evenings, but the theme hardly ever varied. It was the long rhapsody of his discovery of France. How he had loved her from afar before he came to know her and how his love had grown every day since he had had the luck to live here. He would often talk about the politicians of the Nazi party. He would say that they were gross, cruel, sadistic, hard. Then he would say... But they aren't France now. France will cure them. I'm going to tell you the truth. They know it. They know that France will teach them how to be really great and pure and hard. And we must have love. He held the door open for a moment and looking over his shoulder, he gazed at my niece's neck as she leaned over her work. At the pale, fragile nape of her neck where the hair went up in coils of dark mahogany. Then he added in a tone of quiet determination. Yes. But that we must have love. Love which has returned. Then he turned his head on him as he rapidly uttered his evening formula. Long spring days came at last. Always in the background we could hear the surf booming on the beach. And always in the background of our silence, Fonabrena could hear something he couldn't understand. Sometimes he played the piano when he talked. Sometimes he would pause cocky's head like a dog when he hears something strange and far away as if he were trying to hear something in that room in which the three of us sat night after night. One night he said, I feel sorry for the men of this sheen. A leader who has not his people's love is a very miserable little puppet. There had to be someone who would agree to sell his country. Because today, today and for a long time to come, France cannot fall willingly into our open arms without losing a dignity in our own eyes. Often the most sordid go-between is thus at the bottom of the happiest union. A go-between is nonetheless contemptible for that. Nor is the union less happy. I'm going away to Paris for a few weeks. Expect to see my friends there. I'm sure that many of them will be there for the negotiations which we are conducting with your politicians to prepare for the wonderful union of our two countries. So I shall be in a way a witness to the marriage. I want to tell you that I'm happy for the sake of France, whose wounds will thus be so quickly healed. But I'm even happier for Germany than for myself. No one will ever have gained so much from a good deed as will Germany giving back the France of greatness and her liberty. I wish you a very good night. He came back a few weeks later and we saw immediately that something had happened to him. His eyes were wide open like a sleepwalkers. They rested on my knees and never left her. I have something very serious to say to you. Everything I've said in these six months, everything that the walls of this room have heard, you must, you must, you must forget it all. I've seen those men, victors. They laughed at me. They said to me, What do you think we went to war for? For the sake of their old marshal. We have the chance to destroy France and destroy how we will. Not only our material power, but so is the greatest danger. We're at this our job at the moment. Make no mistake about it, my dear fellow. We'll turn it rotten with our smiles and our consideration. We'll destroy, run. There's no hope. No hope, no hope, no hope. There you are. You see? You see how infatuated you are with her, with this France. They are the real danger. But we'll rid Europe of this pest. We'll purge it of this poison. They've explained everything to me. Oh, they've not left me in the dark about anything. They're flattering your writers. But at the same time, in Belgium, in Holland, in all the countries occupied by our troops, they've already put the bars up. No French book can go through any more except technical publications. Manuals on refraction of formulas for cementation. Words of general culture. Not one, none, whatever. Nothing, nothing, nobody. They're just the backs of the audience. Yes. They will put out the light altogether. Never again will Europe be lit up by that flame. Never. They've applied to be transferred to a fighting unit. Authorised to set off tomorrow. I wish you a very good night. I thought he was going to leave us and go to his room. But not at all. I was looking at my niece. He looked at her and whispered, Adieu. Goodbye. He did not move. He remained quite motionless. And in his strained and motionless face, his eyes were the most strained and motionless things of all. For they were bound to other eyes. Too wide open, too pale. The eyes of my niece. That look between them lasted and lasted. How long lasted right up to the moment when it linked the girl moved her lips? Vayner's eyes glittered. I heard that at last I did hear it. Von Hebronak heard it too and he drew himself up. And his face and his whole body seemed to relax as if they'd taken a soothing bath. He smiled. And in such a way that the last picture I had of him was a smiling one. Then he continued up the stairs and his steps died away in the depths of the house. Better than the Nazis! The surf booms in. It is no longer silent. Listen carefully and you will see that it is like the sound of the whispering of people. And that whisper will grow larger, louder. Listen carefully. Do you hear? The surf is a crowd, the voice of the people speaking. It is a wind. A storm. A tempest. A hurricane that will sweep across France when the Americans come. For we are waiting. We are waiting. And when we will come we will be silent. As the 45th program of the Words at War series, we have presented The Silence of the Sea by Vercor. Translated from the French by Cyril Conley. The radio adaptation was made by Lawrence Menken. Rod Hendrickson played the old man. Peter Cappell was Verner von Eberenach. And Charlotte Holland played the niece. Others in the cast included Eleanor Sherman, Jay Wesley, Barry Kroger and Martin Brandt. The music was arranged and played by William Meader at the organ and Artur Balsam at the piano. The entire production was under the direction of Anton M. Lieder. Next week we will present Robert Sherrod's Words at War is brought to you in cooperation with the Council on Books at Wartime, the National Broadcasting Company and the Independent Stations affiliated with the NBC Network. Jack Costello speaking, this is the National Broadcasting Company.