The Early Ayn Rand

"Don't be a fool. Beautiful women don't have to do things like this."

"Maybe she'll tell us what's happening... outside."

"I'd advise you not to speak to her."

"Why?"

"You don't want to give up the last thing you've got."

"What?"

"Your self-respect."

"But maybe she..."

He stopped. No one had told him to stop and he had heard nothing behind them, no steps or sound. But he knew that a man stood behind them, and he knew who it was, and he turned slowly, without being asked to turn, wishing he could leap off the tower rather than turn to face that man.

Commandant Kareyev stood there, at the head of the stairs. People always knew when Commandant Kareyev entered a room, perhaps because he was never conscious of them, of the room, or of his entering it. He stood without moving, looking at the two convicts. He was tall, straight, thin. He seemed to be made of bones, skin, and anesthetized nerves.

His glance held no menace, no anger. It held no meaning at all. His eyes never held any human meaning. The convicts had seen him reward some guard for distinguished service or order a prisoner to be flogged to death — with the same expression. They could not say who feared him more — the guards or the prisoners. His eyes never seemed to see people; they saw, not men, but a thought; a single thought many centuries ahead; and so when people looked at him, they felt cold and lonely, as if they were walking into an endless distance on an open plain at night.

He said nothing. The two convicts moved past him, to the stairs; and went down, hastily, not too steadily; he heard one of them stumbling, if he heard or noticed them at all. He had not ordered them to go.

Commandant Kareyev stood alone on the tower platform, his hair flying in the wind. He leaned over the parapet and looked at the boat. The sky above him was gray as the steel of the gun at his belt.

Commandant Kareyev had worn a gun at his belt for five years. For five years he had been Commandant of Strastnoy Island, the only one of the garrison who had been able to stand it that long. Years before, he had carried a bayonet and fought in the civil war, against some of the men whose prison he was now guarding, and against the parents of others. The civil war had given him a scar on his shoulder and a contempt of death. Peace gave him Strastnoy Island and a contempt of life.

Commandant Kareyev still served the revolution as he had served it in the civil war. He had accepted the island as he had accepted night attacks in the trenches; only this was harder.

He walked sharply, lightly, as if each step were a quick electric shock throwing him forward; a few white streaks shone in his hair, as his first decoration of the North; his lips were motionless when he was pleased, and smiled when he wasn't; he never repeated an order. At night, he sat at his window and looked somewhere, without movement, without thought. They called him "Comrade Commandant" when they met him; behind his back, they called him "the Beast."

The boat was approaching. Commandant Kareyev could distinguish figures on deck. He bent over the parapet; there was no eagerness in his glance, and no curiosity. He could not find the figure he expected. He turned and went down the stairs.

The guard on the first landing straightened quickly at his approach; the guard had been looking at the boat. At the foot of the stairs, two convicts leaned over a windowsill overlooking the sea.

"... he told them he was lonely," he heard one of them say.

"I wouldn't want what he's getting," said the other.

He walked down a deserted corridor. In one of the cells he saw three men standing on a table pushed against a small barred window. They were looking at the sea.

In the hall he was stopped by Comrade Fedossitch, his assistant. Comrade Fedossitch coughed. When he coughed his shoulders shook, drooping forward, and his long neck dipped like the beak of a starving bird. Comrade Fedossitch's eyes had lost their color; they stared, reflecting, like a frozen mirror, the gray of the monastery walls. They stared timidly and arrogantly at once, as if fearing and inviting an insult. He wore a leather whip at his belt.

Comrade Fedossitch had been told that Strastnoy Island was not good for his cough. But it was the only job he knew where he could wear a whip. Comrade Fedossitch had stayed.

He saluted the Commandant, and bowed, and said with a little grin, a servile grin spread like lacquer over the sharp edges of his words:

"If you please, Comrade Commandant. Of course, the Comrade Commandant knows what's best, but I was just thinking: a female citizen coming here against all regulations and..."

"What do you want?"

"Well, for instance, our rooms are good enough for us, but do you think the comrade woman will like hers? Do you want me to fix it up a little and..."

"Never mind. It's good enough for her."