The Early Ayn Rand

“Michael, don't you understand? I love you. I ask you to believe in me. There has never been a time when you could prove your faith, as you can do now. I'm asking the hardest of sacrifices. Don't you know that it's much harder sometimes to stand by and remain silent than to act? I'm doing my part. It's not easy. But yours is worse. Aren't you strong enough for it?"

His face set, his eyes on hers, a new fire in his eyes, he answered slowly:

"Yes."

She whispered, her lips close to his:

"It's not for your sake only, Michael. It's our life. It's the years awaiting us, and all that is still left to us, still possible — if we fight for it. One last struggle and then... then... Michael, I love you."

"I'll do my part, Frances."

"Keep away from me. Pretend you've never seen me before. Remember, your silence is your only way to protect me."

The vaults downstairs rang faintly as if from quick electric shocks. Kareyev's steps hurried up the stairs.

"He's coming, Michael," she whispered. "Here's your beginning. Apologize to me. It will be your first step to help me."

When Commandant Kareyev entered, Joan was standing by the table, examining indifferently a pair of stockings. Michael stood by the door. His head was bowed.

"Well, Volkontzev," the Commandant inquired, "have you had time to think it over? Have you changed your mind?"

Michael raised his head. Joan looked at him. Not a line moved in her calm face, not even the muscles around her eyes. But her eyes looked into his with a silent, desperate plea he alone could understand.

Michael made a step forward and bowed slightly.

"I have been mistaken about you, Comrade Harding," he said steadily, distinctly. "I'm sorry."

Editor's Note

In one summary of Red Pawn, Ayn Rand wrote the following about thebackground of Joan and Michael Presumably, this information would belong somewhere in the preceding sequence.

"Three years ago, as an engineer in charge of a Soviet factory, Michael had been sent on a mission to America. He had met Joan and married her there. But he was forced to return to Russia, because his mother was held as a hostage for his return. Joan had come to Russia with him. Then, during one of the usual political purges, Michael was arrested; the authorities had been suspicious of him for some time, because he showed too much ability, and men of ability are considered dangerous in Russia; besides, he had been abroad and was married to an American who, it was felt, must have taught him many dangerous ideas of freedom. Michael was sent to Strastnoy Island— for life. It had taken Joan two years to find out where he was."

------III------

The Strastnoy Island library was in the former chapel. Here, prisoners and guards off duty were allowed to spend their long days, to try and forget that their days had twenty-four hours — all of them alike.

The sacred emblems and ikons which could be removed had been taken down. But the old paintings on the walls could not be removed. Many centuries ago, the unknown hand of a great artist had spent a lifetime of dreary days immortalizing his soul on the chapel's walls. None could tell what dark secret, what sorrow had thrown him out of the world into its last, forgotten outpost. But all the power and passion, all the fire and rebellious agony of his tortured spirit had been poured into the somber colors on the walls, into majestic figures of a magnificent life, the life his eyes had seen and renounced. And the bodies of tortured saints silently cried of his ecstasy, his doubt, his hunger.

Through three narrow slits of windows, a cold haze of light streamed into the library, like a gray fog rolling in from the sea. It left the shadows of centuries to doze in the dark, vaulted corners. It threw white blotches on the rough, unpainted boards of bookshelves that cut into the angels' snowy wings, into the foreheads of saintly patriarchs; on the procession following the cross-bearing Jesus to the Golgotha; and above it — on the red letters on a strip of white cotton: PROLETARIANS OF THE WORLD UNITE!