The Early Ayn Rand

"Oh..." She laughed, suddenly at ease. "Well, sit down... Oh, it's really you who should invite me to sit down." With which she was sitting on the edge of his table, her shoulders hunched, her legs flung out, sloppily contorted, one foot twisted, pointing in, and grotesquely graceful. "Don't worry," she said, "I haven't touched anything here. It's on account of Helen. She's my roommate. I have nothing against her, except the eight-hour working day."

"What?"

"I mean she's got to be home at five. I wish someone'd exploit her good and hard for a change, but no, she gets off every single evening. She's secretary to a warehouse around here. You have a marvelous room. Sloppy, but look at the space! You can't appreciate what it means to live in a clothes closet — or have you seen the other rooms in this house? Anyway, mine's on the fifth floor, just below you. And when I want to rehearse in the evenings, with Helen down there, I have to do it on the stairs. You see?"

"No."

"Well, go out and see how cold it is on the stairs today. And I saw your door half open. So I couldn't resist it. And then, it was too grand a chance up here to waste it on Polly Mae. Did you ever notice what space will do to your voice? I guess I forgot that someone would come here eventually... My name's Vesta Dunning. Yours is Howard Roark — it's plastered here all over the place — you have a funny handwriting — and you're an architect."

"So you haven't touched anything here?"

"Oh, I just looked at the drawings. There's one — it's crazy, but it's marvelous!" She was up and across the room in a streak, and she stopped, as if she had applied brakes at full speed, at the shelf he had built for his drawings. She always stopped in jerks, as if the momentum of her every movement would carry her on forever and it took a conscious effort to end it. She had the inertia of motion; only stillness seemed to require the impulse of energy.

"This one," she said, picking out a sketch. "What on earth ever gave you an idea like that? When I'm a famous actress, I'll hire you to build this for me."

He was standing beside her; she felt his sleeve against her arm as he took the sketch from her, looked at it, put it back on the shelf.

"When you're a famous actress," he said, "you won't want a house like that."

"Why?" she asked. "Oh, you mean because of Polly Mae, don't you?" Her voice was hard. "You're a strange person. I didn't think anyone would understand it like that, like I do... But you've heard the other also."

"Yes," he said, looking at her.

"You've heard it. You know. You know what it will mean when I'm a famous actress."

"Do you think your public will like it?"

"What?"

"Joan d'Arc."

"I don't care if they don't. I'll make them like it. I don't want to give them what they ask for. I want to make them ask for what I want to give. What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing. I'm not laughing. Go on."

"I know, you think it's cheap and shabby, acting and all that. I do too. But not what I'm going to make of it. I don't want to be a star with a permanent wave. I'm not good-looking anyway. That's not what I'm after. I hate her — Polly Mae. But I'm not afraid of her. I've got to use her to go where I'm going. And where I'm going — it's to the murder of Polly Mae. The end of her in all the minds that have been told to like her. Just to show them what else is possible, what can exist, but doesn't, but will exist through me, to make it real when God failed to... Look, I've never spoken of it to anyone, why am I telling it to you?... Well, I don't care if you hear this also, whether you understand it or not, and I think you understand, but what I want is..."

“... the weapon of that certainty I carry, unchangeable, untouched and unshared."

"Don't!" she screamed furiously. "Oh," she said softly, "how did you remember it? You liked it, didn't you?" She stood close to him, her face hard. "Didn't you?"

"Yes," he said. She was smiling- "Don't be pleased," he added. "It probably means that no one else will."

She shrugged. "To hell with that."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen- Why?"

"Don't people always ask you that when you speak of something that's important to you? They always ask me."

"Have you noticed that? What is it that happens to them when they grow older?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe we'll never know, you and L"

"Maybe."

She saw a package of cigarettes in his coat pocket, extended her hand for it, took it out, calmly offered it to him, and took one for herself- She stood smoking, looking at him through the smoke.

"Do you know," she said, "you're terribly good-looking."

"What?" He laughed. "It's the first time I've ever heard that."

"Well, you really aren't. Only I like to look at your face. It's so... untouchable. It makes me want to see you break down."

"Well, you're honest."

"So are you. And terribly conceited."

"Probably. Call it that. Why?"

"Because you didn't seem to notice that I paid you a compliment."