Ayn Rand: The Early Ayn Rand

"Stop talking as if you're throwing sentences in the wastebasket! Stop being so damn smug! Don't you realize what's happened to you? You had a chance at a real career with a real, first-class firm and you didn't have sense enough to keep it! You had a chance to get out of the gutter and you threw it away! You had to be Joan d'Arc'ish all over the place and..."

"Shut up, Vesta," he said quietly.

When he came home in the evenings, Vesta was there sometimes, waiting for him. She asked: "Found anything?" When he answered, "No," she put her arms around him and said she felt sure he would find it. But secretly, involuntarily, hating herself for it, she felt glad of his failure: it was a vindication of her own unspoken thoughts, of the new appearance the world was presenting to her, of her new security, of her reconciliation with the world, a security which he threatened, a reconciliation against which he stood as a reproach, even though he said nothing and, perhaps, saw nothing. She did not want to acknowledge these thoughts; she needed him, she would not be torn away from him. She could not tell whether he guessed. She knew only that his eyes were watching her, and he said nothing.

Vesta entered the room in a streak, without knocking, and stopped abruptly, her skirt flying in a wide triangle and flapping back tightly against her knees. She stood, her mouth half open, her hair thrown back, as she always stood — as if in a gust of wind, her thin body braced, her eyes wide, impatient, full of a flame that seemed to flicker in the wind.

"Howard! I have something to tell you! Where on earth have you been? I've come up three times this evening. You weren't looking for work at this hour, were you? — you couldn't."

"I..." he began, but she went on:

"Something wonderful's happened to me! I'm signing the contract tomorrow. I'm going to Hollywood."

He sat silently, his arms on the table before him, and looked at her.

“I'm going as soon as the play closes," she said, and threw her hands up, and whirled on one toe, her skirt flaring like a dancer's. "I didn't tell you, but they took a test of me — weeks ago — and I saw it, I don't really look very pretty, but they said they could fix that and that I had personality and they'll give me a chance, and I'm signing a contract!"

"For how long?" he asked.

"Oh, that? That's nothing. It's for five years, but it's only options, you know, I don't have to stay there that long."

He snapped his finger against the edge of a sheet of newspaper and the click of his nail sent it across the table with a thin, whining crackle, like a string plucked, and he said nothing.

"Oh, no," she said, too emphatically, "I'm not giving up the stage. It's just to make some quick money."

"You don't need it. You said you could have any part you chose next year."

"Sure. I can always have that — after those notices."

"Next year, you could do what you've wanted to do."

"I'm doing that."

"So I see."

"Well, why not? It's such a chance."

"For what?"

"Oh, for... for... Hell, I don't see why you have to disapprove!"

"I haven't said that."

"Oh, no! You never say anything. Well, what's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. Only that you're lying."

"How?"

"You're not going for the money."

"Well... well, for what then? And isn't it better — whatever you mean than to go for money? I thought you wouldn't approve of my going after money."

"No, Vesta. You thought I might approve. That's why you said it."

"Well, is it all right if it's for the money?"

"It might be. But that's not what you're after."

"What am I after?"

"People."

"What people?"

"Millions of them. Carloads. Tons. Swarms of them. To look at you. To admire you. No matter what they're admiring you for."

"You're being silly. I don't know what you're driving at. And besides, if I make good, I don't have to play in stupid movies. I can select my parts. I can do as much as on the stage. More. Because it will reach so many more people and..." He was laughing. "Oh, all right, don't be so smart! You'll see. I can do what I want on the screen, too. Just give me time. I'll do everything I want."

"Joan d'Arc?"

"Why not? Besides, it'll help. I'll make a name for myself, then watch me come back to the stage and do Joan d'Arc! And furthermore..."

"Look, Vesta, I'm not arguing. You're going. That's fine. Don't explain too much."

"You don't have to look like a judge dishing out a life sentence! And I don't care whether you approve or not!"

"I haven't said I didn't."

"I thought you'd be glad for me. Everybody else was. But you have to spoil it."

"How?"

"Oh, how! How do you always manage to spoil everything? And here I was so anxious to tell you! I couldn't wait. Where on earth have you been all evening, by the way?"

"Working."

"What? Where?"

"In the office."

"What office? Have you found a job?"

"Two weeks ago."

"Oh!... Well, how nice...Doing what?"

"Well, what do you suppose?"

"Oh, you got a real job? With an architect? So you found one to take you after all?"

"Yes."

"Well... it's wonderful... I'm awfully glad... Oh, I'm awfully glad..." She heard her own voice, flat and empty and with a thin, strange, distant note in it, a note that was anger without reason; she wondered whether it sounded like that to him also. She said quickly: "I hope you're set this time. I hope you'll be successful someday — like everybody else."

He leaned back and looked at her. She stood defiantly, holding his eyes, saying nothing, flaunting her consciousness of the meaning of his silence.

"You're not glad that I got it," he said. "You hope I won't last. That's the next best to the thing you really hope — that I'll be successful someday like everybody else."

"You're talking nonsense. I don't know what you're saying."

He sat, looking at her, without moving. She shrugged and turned away; she picked up the newspaper and flipped its pages violently, as if the loud crackling could shut out the feeling of his eyes on her.

"All right," he said slowly. "Now say it."

"What?" she snapped, whirling around.

"What you've wanted to say for a long time."

She flung the newspaper aside. She said: "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Say it, Vesta."

"Oh, you're impossible! You're..." And then her voice dropped suddenly, and she spoke softly, simply, pleading: "Howard, I love you. I don't know what it is. I don't know why it should be like this. I love you and I can't stand you. And also, I wouldn't love you if I could stand you, if you were any different. But what you are — that frightens me, Howard. I don't know why. It frightens me because it's something in me which I don't want. No. Because it's something in me which I do want, but I'd rather not want it, and... Oh, you can't understand any of it!"

"Go on."

"Yes, damn you, you do understand!... Oh, don't look at me like that!... Howard, Howard, please listen. It's this: you want the impossible. You are the impossible yourself — and you expect the impossible. I can't feel human around you. I can't feel simple, natural, comfortable. And one's got to be comfortable sometime! It's like... like as if you had no weekdays at all in your life, nothing but Sundays, and you expect me always to be on my Sunday behavior. Everything is important to you, everything is great, significant in some way, every minute, even when you keep still. God, Howard, one can't stand that! It becomes unbearable... if... if I could only put it into words!"

"You have. Very nicely."

"Oh, please, Howard, don't look like that! I'm not... I'm not criticizing you. I understand. I know what you want of life. I want it too. That's why I love you. But, Howard! You can't be that all the time! God, not all the time! One's got to be human also."