The Early Ayn Rand

"Hold it," she ordered, taking out a wrap, shaking its fluffy fur collar, stroking it gently, hanging it carefully in the niche. He held the dress cautiously, his fingers moving slowly in the smooth, lustrous folds, soft and bewildering as some unknown beast's skin. He said:

"You won't need such things here."

"I thought you might like them."

"I don't notice rags."

"Give me that dress. Don't hold it up by the hem like that."

"What's the use of such a thing?"

"It's beautiful."

"It's useless."

"But it's beautiful. Isn't that reason enough to bring it along, Comrade Kareyev?"

"One of us," said Commandant Kareyev, "has a lot to learn."

"One of us," she answered slowly, "has."

She bent into the trunk and took out a long satin nightgown. She displayed the luxury of her exquisite possessions in a natural, indifferent manner, as if they were to be

expected, as if she did not notice Kareyev's surprised eyes; as if she did not know that this elegance of a fashionable boudoir transplanted into a monk's cell was a challenge to the frozen walls, to the grim Communist, to the very duty she had accepted. Under the dusty bottle that held a candle on the table, she put down a huge white powder puff.

He asked gruffly:

"Where do you think you are?"

"I think," she answered with her lightest smile, "that you may wish to think of places where you haven't been — someday."

"I don't have many wishes," he answered sternly, "except those that come on official blanks with a Party seal. If they tell me to stay here — I'll stay."

He looked at the row of dresses in the niche. He kicked an open trunk impatiently.

"Are you through with that?" he asked. "I haven't much time to waste here helping you.'

"You haven't given me much time," she complained. "They have been calling you away all morning."

"They'll call me again. I have more important things to do than to hang up that junk of yours."

She brought out a satin slipper. She studied its buckle thoughtfully, attentively.

"That man who came to my room last night," she asked, "where did you put him?"

"Into the pit."

"The pit?"

"Fifty feet under the ground. Could swim down there if all the water on the walls wasn't frozen. But it's frozen. And I gave him the limit."

"The limit of what?"

"Of light. When we give the limit, we close the big shutter over the hole above. Until we open it to throw him food, he might as well be blind for all the good his eyes will do him."

"How long is his sentence?"

"Ten days."

She bent for the second slipper. She put them down carefully under the folds of a long robe. She asked with a light smile:

"Do men think that kind of punishment satisfies a woman?"

"What would a woman do?"

"I would make him apologize."

"You wouldn't want me to have him shot, would you? For disobedience? He'll never apologize."

"Suspend his sentence if he does."

"He's a hard one. I've broken many a hard one here, but he's steel — so far. Strastnoy Island hasn't put its rust on him, yet."

"Well? Are you only after those you know are easily broken?”

Commandant Kareyev walked to the door, opened it, and blew his whistle.

"Comrade Fedossitch," he ordered his assistant when shuffling feet stopped at the door, "bring Citizen Volkontzev here."

Comrade Fedossitch looked, surprised, at Kareyev. He looked into the room at Joan, a veiled glance of resentful hatred- He bowed and shuffled away.

They heard his steps again mingled with the resonant stride of Volkontzev. Comrade Fedossitch pushed the door open with his boot and, stepping aside, drawing his head into his shoulders in the obsequious bow of a headwaiter, his elbows pressed tightly to his body, let Michael enter, approached Kareyev and remarked, smiling softly, his smile timidly apologetic and arrogantly remonstrative at once:

"It's against the law, Comrade Commandant. The sentence was ten days."

"Has Comrade Fedossitch forgotten," Kareyev asked, "that my

order brought Citizen Volkontzev here?"

And he slammed the door, leaving his assistant outside.

Commandant Kareyev looked at Michael, pale, erect in his old jacket that fitted so well; then, he looked at Joan, who faced the prisoner, studying with an indifferent curiosity the patches on that jacket and the blue, frozen hands in its sleeves.

"You are here, Volkontzev," said Commandant Kareyev, "to apologize."

"To whom?" Michael asked calmly.

"To Comrade Harding."

Michael made a step toward her and bowed graciously.

"I'm sorry, madam," he smiled, "that you made the worthy Commandant break a law — for the first time in his life. But I warn you, Comrade Commandant, laws are easily broken by... er... Comrade Harding."

"Citizen Volkontzev is not a fair judge of women," Joan answered, her voice expressionless.

"I should hate to judge all women, Comrade Harding, by some I have known."

"You're here to apologize," reminded Kareyev. "If you do, your sentence will be suspended."

"And if I don't?"

"I've been here five years and all the prisoners until now have obeyed me. If I stay here longer, off of them will learn to obey me. And I'm not leaving — yet."