From
Dark
Music and Other Spectral Tales
All
arrangements were completed for the strangest and most unusual radio
broadcast ever
conceived.
WXAT,
New York key station of a coast-to-coast chain of
ninety some radio stations, was ready to broadcast the voice
of a woman, dead for fifteen years.
And
now, after fifteen years of silence—a silence that was
sealed by the grave—it was said that Sonya Parrish would
sing again; that her lovely voice would rise sweet and
clear in Gounod’s inspired “Ave Maria,” and mourn
plaintively
through the haunting beauty of Wagner’s “Traume.”
WXAT
and its affiliated stations publicized the broadcast
months previous to the memorable night when it was scheduled
to go on the air. It was an experiment, the network
officials admitted. There was a possibility that it might
not be a success. But they believed it would be. Sonya Parrish—living
or dead—was not the sort of artist to
disappoint an audience. And this would be an audience of
entire nations—uncounted millions—waiting to hear the
long-stilled voice of the great soprano. Short wave broadcast
would carry the program to South America and European
stations for re-broadcast. The whole world would
be a world of ears, a world of hushed voices, waiting
for that one voice from the beyond. And Sonya Parrish, station
officials believed, would not fail to sing for those
hushed, awed listeners.
A
brief newspaper clipping from Penhale, an obscure Connecticut
town, was the first in the series of incidents which
led to the plans for the incredible broadcast. By the merest
chance, the clipping had come to the attention of a high official of
WXAT. The item told, half-humorously in
a self-consciously reportorial style, of the strange singing which
had been heard recently in the graveyard at Pen-hale.
The clipping proceeded to link the ghostly singing with the grave of
Sonya Parrish, whose body had been interred
in the humble cemetery fifteen years ago. Penhale
had been Sonya’s early home and now she lay buried there,
beside her father and mother. It was her voice that had
been heard.
The
WXAT official put the notice aside with mild curiosity.
Several weeks passed. Then this same official’s attention
had been caught by an article in a New York tabloid. It
was the Penhale reporter’s story re-told more ambitiously
and lavishly illustrated with photographs of the late
Sonya Parrish. The article was further embellished with
the work of an imaginative artist who pictured Sonya,
radiantly lovely and sad, singing triumphantly against
the gruesome background of the Penhale graveyard.
It was this vivid picture, stirring his imagination, which
sent the WXAT official off on an investigation which
was eventually to lead to plans for the broadcast.
Slipping
quietly away from New York, the official motored
to Penhale and spent some time questioning the villagers.
He found it to be an established and accepted belief
that Sonya Parrish sang almost nightly in the graveyard.
He had been invited to hear her. And he had gone, half-amused
at his own credulity, to the graveyard. At midnight,
the hour when Sonya was said to sing, he had heard
it himself. He had started violently at the first note. It
was Sonya Parrish’s voice! There was no denying it! There
was no other voice in the world—or out of it—like that
one. He had listened, enraptured, the first tremor of fear quickly
displaced by the magical beauty of the voice that held him
spellbound. It was Sonya Parrish! No one could
deny it! The radio official hadn’t slept the rest of the
night. Early in the morning he motored back to New York
in record time. In a few weeks plans for the amazing broadcast
were announced.
At
first the public laughed at the announcements. It was
some publicity stunt to introduce a new singer. It was merely
a scheme to gain the public’s attention and columns
of priceless publicity for WXAT and its stations. Of
course they could broadcast the voice of Sonya Parrish—hadn’t
she made scores of phonograph records? But the network
officials vigorously denied these charges. No records
would be used. This was no stunt. In an effort to convince
the public of the sincerity of the venture, the radio officials
invited the co-operation of several celebrated
psychologists and investigators of psychical phenomena.
With the names of these well known men of science
back of it, the venture assumed solemnity and dignity
in the layman’s mind, and much of the public jeering
and ridiculing of the proposed broadcast subsided. Thus,
the almost magical power of the mere mention of the
name of Science to render logical in the public mind the
most extravagant project.
The
broadcast was set for the night of August 30th. At five
minutes before midnight, the remote control line from
Penhale would be plugged into the key station WXAT
in New York, and the announcer would open the broadcast.
Five minutes later—at midnight—it was hoped that
the voice of Sonya Parrish would bridge the gap of fifteen years of
death and sing again.
Adrian
Ramsey, gifted young announcer of WXAT and winner of the coveted gold
medal diction award from the Academy of Arts and Letters for two
successive years, was assigned
to handle the broadcast. It was arranged that Ramsey
would be alone in the graveyard beside the great monolith
which marked the hallowed ground in which the body of Sonya Parrish
lay resting.
A
slender cable, extending from Ramsey’s microphone to
a point just outside the graveyard gate, connected the microphone
with an amplifying system, operated by WXAT
engineers. Telephone wires would then carry the broadcast
to the local telephone exchange in Penhale, from
which point it would be dispatched by long distance telephone
lines to WXAT in New York, and thence by radio
to the listening world.
It
was decided that no one was to be in the graveyard but Ramsey, as it
had been found that the singing was always
clearest when the cemetery was nearly deserted. On several
evenings, following the wide-spread publicizing of
the phenomena, curious crowds had collected in the graveyard,
and as a result there had been no singing. Upon formulating
its plans for the broadcast, WXAT had secured
permission from the Penhale authorities to station a
strict guard about the cemetery after nightfall. On the night
of the broadcast, it was planned to double the guard.
At
last the great night arrived. Long before midnight, practically
every radio receiver in the United States was tuned
to WXAT and its network of stations. Foreign listeners
awaited the short wave re-broadcast, which would reach
them through their local stations. Heretofore neglected radios
suddenly loomed as instruments of the utmost
importance, and became the center of interest of excited
groups of listeners.
Adrian
Ramsey stood just outside the gate of the gloomy little
Penhale graveyard. It was 11:30. In just twenty-five minutes
he would walk into the shadows of those trees alone—and
take his solitary position before the microphone,
which had been set up hours previous beside the grave
of Sonya Parrish, the greatest singer the world had ever
known.
In
spite of his training in the commercial world of radio,
Adrian was an artist with an artist’s temperament. While
he was possessed of a naturally keen and vivid imagination,
he wasn’t the nervous type, nor likely to become easily
excited—radio announcers can’t afford to—yet he was
conscious of a mounting tenseness and an eerie sense of
the unreal. Certainly no man had ever been assigned to a
stranger duty—to announce to an audience of uncounted
millions the singing of a woman, fifteen years dead!
Adrian
glanced at the slender gold watch on his wrist. Ten
minutes till twelve. It was time he took his place at the
microphone. A small group of WXAT officials and technicians
stood about, talking in lowered tones.
“Everything’s
ready, Ramsey,” said a tall dark man. He
was Turner, program director of WXAT. “We have men
stationed every few feet about the place. You won’t be
disturbed.” The program director paused. Then, placing
his hand on Adrian’s shoulder, he added quietly, “It’s
got
to work.” In those four words he expressed the fear that
haunted every member of the WXAT staff.
“It’s
got to work!” If it didn’t, there would be no choice but
to return the control to New York and proceed with the
blaring of a night club orchestra. WXAT and its great nation-wide
network of stations would be the laughing stock
of the world. It didn’t matter that every item of publicity
had carried a clause stating that the broadcast was
an experiment--a great experiment—and there was a possibility,
through no default of the network, that the experiment
would fail. All that and the fact that the chain officials were
courageous enough to attempt so unusual a broadcast
would quickly be lost sight of in the torrent of jeering
and ridicule which would follow the unsuccessful venture.
The rival network would see to that!
And
so, there is small wonder that misgivings and last minute
doubts crowded into Adrian Ramsey’s mind, as he walked
silently through the Penhale graveyard to the tomb
of Sonya Parrish.
There
was the microphone. He could see it gleaming in
the moonlight. Cold, polished steel—an electric ear—insensible
to the drama of the moment, waiting only to pick
up and record with mechanical precision whatever sounds
chanced to strike and agitate its sensitive diaphragm.
Arriving
at the microphone, Adrian looked about him. He
might be the only human being within miles—so silent,
so lonely was the spot. He felt as if he were the only person
on earth—save Sonya Parrish. There was her grave,
a rounded mound of sod, silver-black in the moonlight,
and at its head—the monolith, whitely gleaming and drenched
with the rays of the moon that filtered through
the leaves of a great elm tree. On either side of the
imposing monument were the humble stones marking the
resting places of Sonya Parrish’s New England forebears.
Adrian
Ramsey consulted his watch again. One minute more.
Then he would be on the air. During the first few minutes,
he would picture the eerie scene about him, and tell
something of the greatness that had been Sonya Parrish’s.
Then at midnight—
Now
that the actual moment for action had arrived, Adrian
was cool and collected. He forgot his doubts. He thought
only of his part of the broadcast. Intently his eyes followed his
stop watch. Slowly it neared the sixty mark—fifteen
seconds—ten seconds—five seconds—11:55. A tiny
amber
signal light on the microphone stand glowed dully.
“Good
evening, Ladies and Gentlemen of the radio audience.”
It was the cultured and flawlessly correct voice of Adrian
Ramsey. He might have been speaking from the luxurious
studios in New York, announcing a routine program,
surrounded by every refinement of modern civilization.
His diction was perfect. His carefully modulated voice
was calm and controlled.
For
five minutes Adrian talked. He pictured in vivid simple
phrases the humble little village graveyard, where this
first broadcast of its kind ever attempted was taking place.
He read the inscription from the monolith that surmounted
Sonya Parrish’s resting place. He spoke of the hardy
New England forebears of this great woman, all of whom lay buried
here. He recalled Sonya’s early life, her singing
as a child in the village choir, and later her great gift
of artistry which had carried her across the ocean to study
under the tutelage of European masters. He pictured
her triumphs in Continental capitals, the multitudes of
Berlin, Paris, Vienna, London, worshiping at her feet. His
voice rose as he graphically portrayed her triumphal return to her
native shores and her sensational debut with the
Metropolitan Opera Company. Then followed her long
and full years of glorious singing, her concert tours in
which she had swept over the land like a great wave of melody
and song—this had been before the days of radio.
Then
in lowered tones, Adrian spoke compassionately of
the lingering illness which had stricken the singer, when
she was at the heights of her powers and fame. He told
of her death and of how every nation of the world had
paid sorrowful homage to the memory of the great woman
whose voice was stilled. Adrian paused. Then in a
few words he told of the singing in the graveyard and of
the plans of WXAT which had culminated in this memorable
experiment. In closing, he expressed the hope that
the radio audience would be considerate of the spirit in
which the experiment had been attempted, and, if it failed,
would think rather of the noble motives which had inspired
the venture, than of its failure.
It
was intensely moving. Millions heard Adrian’s voice. Millions
were thrilled by it. The glowing tones—the dramatic
phrasing—the supreme significance of the moment.
Again
Adrian paused. He himself had been carried away.
He trembled slightly. Even as he paused, a sound rose
above the night silence and the monotonous chirruping
of the crickets. It was the bell of the village church of Penhale
tolling the hour of midnight. The vibrations carried
clear and pure through the summer night. The microphone was hearing
it, even as he was, Adrian knew. What
better introduction to what was to follow than the eerie
tolling of that distant bell?
Adrian
listened, himself spellbound. Eight—nine—ten—eleven—twelve.
Breathlessly Adrian counted them off. Then he moved closer to the
microphone.
“It
is midnight, Ladies and Gentlemen,” he spoke in a subdued
voice, little more than a whisper. “If Sonya Parrish
can hear my voice, she will come now, and sing for
the millions who are listening throughout the world.” Adrian
stepped back from the microphone and waited. Tiny
beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead. There
was nothing more he could do. His part was finished.
In
New York excited groups of apartment dwellers clustered
about loudspeakers. The ticking of millions of Gotham’s
clocks was suddenly, and perhaps for the first time, audible. In
restaurants and places of entertainment, all
music and talking stopped. No one stirred. New York was
an ear.
Across
the Middle West there were lights in the living rooms
of farm homes at an hour when the occupants were customarily
long abed. Hard-working farmers and their wives
and families grouped tensely about loudspeakers—waiting.
The bass of frogs sounded from nearby pools and streams,
and the faint night wind set home-fashioned draperies
fluttering in windows that looked out onto spreading
fields and well-tended farm lands.
In
the South, the moon shone down on wide acres of cotton,
white and rolling, like the foam-crested waves of the
sea. In humble cabins, far back from the deserted highways,
cheap radio receivers inspired a reverent silence. A
silence, breathless with the mingled emotions born in the
superstitious hearts of the colored folk to whom all this
was as a miracle that had passed so many long centuries
ago in ancient Jerusalem, pervaded the tiny dwellings.
In the mansions of the South, the fine old aristocratic
families—last of the Barons of the soil—gathered in the
ancestral halls to listen and wait.
On
the plains of the West, cattle herders and ranchers sat
on their rude bunks, their eyes mesmerized by illuminated dials.
Occasionally the stillness was broken by the lonely
cry of a coyote.
And
in the Far West, up and down the great Pacific coast
line with its string of thriving cities, millions more listened
and waited, silently enduring the emptiness of those
few moments that was like the emptiness that stretches
into eternity.
In
foreign lands, encircling the globe, the picture was the same. The
world was an ear—a vast, multitudinous ear,
an ear that listened tensely, hoping for a merest shred of
the assurance that had been sought since the birth of the
race—the assurance that death holds something more than
the grave.
And
then, into that ear, softly at first, softly and with incredible
sweetness, flowed the unforgettable voice of Sonya Parrish. The
world’s heart stopped beating for a moment,
as it listened. The voice sounded on. It was “Solvejg’s
Song” from the “Peer Gynt Suite.” Delicately
lovely,
rising at one moment to rich crescendos of warm beauty,
and descending the next to notes of minor plaintiveness
that pierced the heart with wistful beauty, the melody
wavered and waned across the night air.
This
was no hoax. This was Parrish—Sonya Parrish, the incomparable!
Many older listeners, recalling the occasions
when they had been thrilled by this sublime voice in concert
halls and opera houses, listened awe-struck. Tears welled
to their eyes.
A
warm note of thanks swept through hearts separated by
thousands of miles, linking them in a common tide of thanksgiving.
There was no more distance—no more space—no
more loneliness—even no more death—the impossible
had happened—Sonya Parrish was singing again!
The
last note of the incredible singing wavered into silence. Then came
the voice of Adrian Ramsey. But it was
a different Adrian Ramsey who spoke. He, too, had been
touched and exalted by the magic that had happened.
His voice was vibrant and rich with the strange heady
excitement of the moment. He was speaking:
“Sonya
Parrish has sung,” a slight tremble in his voice betrayed
his emotion. “Sonya Parrish has sung for the greatest
audience ever assembled. As I look about me, I bow
my head in humility. Never was mortal man favored with
such a sight. I see the world’s immortals gathered in this
little graveyard to pay homage to the divine artistry of
Sonya Parrish. There—not twenty paces from me—stands
great Caesar with his Roman court. And there—resplendent in the
many-colored robes of the Orient—Marco
Polo, the dreamer and adventurer. And there kindly-visaged
Shakespeare, mightiest of all the men of letters.
His keen eyes gleam with heart-felt appreciation of
the artistry he has just witnessed. And there is another divine
woman, whose memory the world cherishes—the great
Bernhardt, more magnetic and lovely than words can tell.
Her eyes are moist with tears, a beautiful tribute to Sonya
Parrish’s art.”
In
New York, the WXAT official, who had conceived the
broadcast, started. This was carrying the thing a little too
far! Even he had been moved by the almost unbelievable
success of the weird venture, but Ramsey was going too
far. What did he mean? There was no way to stop him
now. The official listened again. Ah, Sonya Parrish was
singing once more! He listened, enchanted. God! Never
had there been such singing as this! The beauty was
heart-wringing. It was almost a relief when it wavered into
silence.
Ramsey
was speaking again. The official listened. “Sonya
Parrish has sung again,” came the voice from the loudspeaker.
“She will sing no more tonight. For those who
have assembled here she has displayed the magic of her
great art. I bow my head in the glory of the moment in
which I am permitted to speak. Such glory has never before
come to man. I am humble before the multitude that
is Sonya Parrish’s audience.” Ramsey paused, then
continued
in a voice that was curiously subdued. “And reverently,
worshipfully I speak of One who has lately joined the multitude. For
Him the great ones made way as
for a King. He is garbed simply in a white robe that falls
from His shoulders. A circlet of thorns crowns His head.
His eyes are kind and gentle and more wise than—”
There
was silence. Quickly the announcer in the New York
studios stepped to the microphone and made the customary
station identification and the concluding announcement
for the program.
The
broadcast had been a superb success! It was perfect—save
for Ramsey’s odd behavior. The man had obviously broken
down, a prey to a bad attack of nerves. But even the
official of WXAT couldn’t find it in his heart to censure
him. He was much too elated with the amazing success
of the broadcast. And Ramsey’s position had undoubtedly
been a difficult one. An iron man might have faltered.
At
the Penhale graveyard, the little group of station officials
and technicians, who had listened breathlessly, just
outside the cemetery, with ear-phones clasped to their heads,
turned from their equipment and gazed at one another.
They breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. It had been
a success—more of a success than they had dared hope
for. And Ramsey—what an ordeal it must have been for
him! Alone there in the graveyard with that singing!
They
started along the white-pebbled path of the graveyard
to meet Ramsey and congratulate him on the splendid
broadcast. But Ramsey wasn’t in sight. They could distinguish
the gleaming white marble that marked the grave
of Sonya Parrish. Still, Ramsey was nowhere to be seen.
Then one of the engineers, who was in the lead, shouted
and broke into a run. In a few moments they were all
standing before the grave of Sonya Parrish. There was the
microphone with the familiar call letters, WXAT, across
its top. At the base of the instrument, lay the body of
Adrian Ramsey. He was dead.
In
his eyes shone the light of a greater glory than any living
man had ever before looked upon.
