Without Love Page #3

- Anna will show you.

- But you seem to be a girl...

...who's kept a lot of precious things

locked up...

...for a great many precious years.

Thank you, madam.

You slay me.

Hello. Colonel Braden's office?

May I speak to the colonel, please?

- This is Patrick Jamieson.

- Oh, yes. Jamieson.

Here's your protg, professor.

Any luck?

Yes. I found a place.

I can start work tomorrow.

Nobody will bother you?

You're sure?

Good. Wait, here's a friend.

Just flew in from Chicago.

Thank you. Hello, Pat.

Well, well, you'll be happy to know

they already think you're crazy here.

Hello, Professor Grinza.

Sure they think I'm crazy.

That's why I wanna work alone.

How's Chicago?

Well, we are waiting for you

to come back...

...with that oxygen mask

that'll prove who's crazy...

...you or these army aviation experts.

Don't tell them, but I'm betting on you.

Oh, yes, yes,

we have all the equipment you need.

Say, what address shall we send it to?

Address? Oh, wait just a minute.

What address is this place?

481 Connecticut Avenue, Northwest.

Why?

481 Connecticut Avenue, Northwest.

Yes. Well, if there's anything else,

I'll call you. Thank you.

I was just ordering some groceries,

madam.

- But I'm only staying tonight.

- That's too bad.

We're going to have baby limas.

Thanks, Diz.

I haven't done that for a long time,

have I?

Go on, go to bed now.

- Is that all you're going to play?

- Where did you come from?

I've been sitting on the stair

listening for a long time.

I play a little too but nothing

as well as you do.

Perhaps you'd like to take over.

No, thanks.

Thanks very much, but no, thanks.

Look, because I'm a...

- Because I can't sleep is no reason...

- I'm staying right here.

I know what it's like to

be wakeful with no one to...

Well, then, talk, just talk.

Come on. Talk my ear off.

- What about?

- About yourself.

- That's always interesting.

- Not myself.

Why don't you let me be

the judge of that?

Come on, now. Come on.

Come out with it.

Where you from? Whither bound?

I like to know all about people.

Well, I was born in 1917

in the New England town...

...where my father was born,

his father before him, my mother too.

- Is that the way?

- That's the way. Go ahead.

Oh, we lived in a big brick house...

...bigger than this, but like this,

with no reason for it.

I was the only child

and even I didn't appear...

...until several years

after father and mother were married.

I guess he knew

I was all he was going to get...

...and that's why he named me Jamie.

Mother was never very strong.

But I remember that she was

terribly sweet.

And really quite pretty.

I can understand that.

She died when I was 8.

Father loved me dearly...

...and I simply worshipped

the ground he walked on.

Miss Jennings, my governess,

I always secretly hated.

And I hate her now.

She made me terribly shy with people...

...and frightened the life out of me

about God and purity.

You probably had

a very healthy reaction.

No, the fact is I never did.

By gum, I'm still scared.

I pray for guidance

and blush when I get it.

When did you get married?

Don't you think that you ought to

tell me...

...something about yourself first?

After all, if you're going to live

in my house without references...

What do you wanna hear? My father?

I didn't have a governess.

You don't have to tell me

if you don't want to.

Look, I'm what is known as a scientist.

I'm curious about things.

Reasons for things. Facts.

I'll tell you what I'll do with you:

I'll tell you a few facts about myself

as one scientist to another.

- And I'll expect facts in return.

- Keep going about you.

Well, fact number one:

About love.

I have been in love once in my life.

A girl I met in Paris. Lila Vine.

She was cuckoo, nuts.

She was bright and gay and shallow.

And lived for parties.

She was forever humming

or singing magical little French tunes...

...and saying,

"What, darling? What, sweet?"

It was a thoroughly devastating

and a supremely joyless affair.

- Couldn't it have been otherwise?

- Fact number two:

She had no heart. I tell you this

scientifically and honestly.

She was a witch on a broomstick.

She wouldn't have me

and she wouldn't let me go.

The last time I saw her, she was

wearing a white evening gown...

...with her curls piled on top

of her head, looking about 16.

I think most girls

have a white dress they remember...

...or are remembered in.

- And if one falls in love in one...

- Love?

For our conclusions on love, madam,

let me tell you that you can have it.

Anybody can who wants it,

but not for me.

No, madam, never no more.

- I don't want anymore of that sickness.

- Don't call it that.

That's what it was for me.

If I ever feel symptoms of it again...

...I'll show it's fair object the

cleanest pair of heels ever a girl saw.

- Oh, it's you.

- Yes, good morning.

- I thought I heard somebody.

- It's odd, this. It's very odd.

Very odd indeed.

Anna doesn't believe

in scientific research.

You never want love in your life again.

I never want it in mine.

But our reasons are as different

as the sun is from the moon.

You don't want it

because you've had all the worst of it.

I don't want it

because I've had all the best.

- Was it like that?

- His name was...

His name is Harry Rowan.

He was 22 when we met. I was 20.

He was getting just out

of the University of Virginia...

...where my father went to make

the commencement address.

We were in love before we knew it,

deeply and instantly.

We got married a month later...

...and went to live on the sweet farm

his grandfather left him, White Gate.

That's where I'm going back

to this morning. I live there still.

He was a scientist too.

Agricultural. I helped him.

He was the finest, the kindest...

...the gentlest human being

I've ever known.

He had a first-rate mind

and was very amusing.

I was amusing then too,

or he seemed to think so.

We laughed a great deal together.

We were so young

and everything was such great fun.

He must have been something,

all right.

He was everything.

For two years, it was heaven on Earth.

Every living, breathing moment of it,

perfection.

- For only two years?

- That's all.

But it was a lifetime, really.

Then one morning early...

...a morning just like any other one...

...he was trying out a new horse,

a jumper.

It seems that he behaved all right

at first and then...

...suddenly without warning,

refused a fence and threw Harry...

...marvelous rider that he was.

He landed the terribly wrong way...

...as sometimes happens,

even to the best.

They brought...

They brought him back to me...

...and he lived only long enough

to grin his grin at me and say:

"What a dirty trick on us, Jamie.

But don't think we end here. "

- So you see.

- Yes, I see.

A story of a girl who wants no more of

life because life has no more to give her.

That's right.

It isn't right.

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