The Early Ayn Rand, Page 2

  On the surface, this story might appear to be quite conventional. I can imagine someone reading it as the tragic story of an unloved wife “selflessly” removing herself from her husband’s path. But the actual meaning is the opposite. Irene is not a selfless wife, but a passionate valuer; her decision to leave Henry is not self-sacrifice, but self-preservation and the reaffirmation of her values. She cannot accept anyone less than Henry, or any relationship with him less than what she has had.

  Nor does Irene draw a tragic conclusion from her suffering. The glory of her life, she feels, is that Henry exists, that she had him once, and that she will love him always. Even in the agony of unrequited love, her implicit focus is on values, not on pain. This is especially clear in her desire to protect her ideal from suffering, to protect him for her own sake, although she is leaving him, to keep her supreme value whole, radiant, godlike, not dimmed or diminished by loss and sorrow. “Henry, you must be happy, and strong, and glorious. Leave suffering to those that cannot help it. You must smile at life. . . . And never think about those that cannot. They are not worthwhile.”

  The story’s events are conventional—but their meaning and motivation are vintage Ayn Rand, and utterly unconventional. What makes this possible is the profound seriousness of Irene’s passion. This is what transforms and transfigures an otherwise ordinary tale.

  There are, of course, major flaws in the story’s execution. Important events are not dramatized, but merely narrated (and sometimes only sketchily explained). This is a practice opposite to that of the mature Ayn Rand. The moral code of the small town—the narrow respectability of sixty years ago—is thoroughly dated, and, in our age, virtually unbelievable. Above all, there is the problem of the language, which reflects a mind still unfamiliar with many essentials of English grammar, vocabulary, and idiom; as a result, the dialogue in particular is often stilted and unreal. I have edited out the most confusing lapses of English grammar and wording and the most obvious foreignisms, but have allowed the rest of the text to stand as written, so as to leave to posterity a record of where Ayn Rand began. Those who have read her novels can judge for themselves how far she was able to travel.

  It may be wondered why Ayn Rand chose to present man-worship first of all in the form of a story of unrequited love. My conjecture—it is only that—is that this aspect of the story was autobiographical. Ayn Rand as a college student was in love with a young man in Russia who was the real-life source of the character of Leo. She remembered this young man, and her feeling for him, all her life. The relationship between them, however, was never fulfilled—whether for personal reasons or political ones (I believe he was exiled to Siberia) I do not know. But, either way, it is easy to imagine that alone in a new country, on the threshold of a new life, she should be drawn to focus as a kind of farewell on the man she loved and had now lost forever—or, more exactly, to focus on her own feeling for that man and loss.

  —L. P.

  The Husband I Bought

  I should not have written this story. If I did it all—I did it only by keeping silent. I went through tortures, such as no other woman on earth, perhaps just to keep silent. And now—I speak. I must not have written my secret. But I have a hope. My one and only, and last hope. And I have no time before me. When life is dead and you have nothing left on your way—who can blame you for taking a last chance, a poor little chance . . . before the end? And so I write my story.

  I loved Henry. I love him. It is the only thing I know and I can say about myself. It is the only thing, that was my life. There is no person on earth that has never been in love. But love can go beyond all limits and bounds. Love can go beyond all consciousness, beyond your very soul.

  I never think of how I met him. It has no importance for me. I had to meet him and I did. I never think of how and when I began to love him or how I realized that he loved me. The only thing I know is that two words only were written on my life: “Henry Stafford.”

  He was tall and slim, and beautiful, too beautiful. He was intensely ambitious and never made a step to realize it. He had an immense, indefinite longing and did not trouble himself to think about it. He was the most perfectly refined and brilliant man, whom society admired and who laughed at society. A little lazy, very skeptical, indifferent to everything. Haughty and self-conceited for himself—gracious and ironical for everybody.

  In our little town Henry Stafford was, of course, the aim and target of all the girls and “homemade” vamps. He flirted openly with everyone; that made them all furious.

  His father had left him a big business. He managed it just enough to have the necessary money and the least trouble possible. He treated his business with the same smile of perfect politeness and perfect indifference with which he spoke to our society ladies or read a popular best-seller, from the middle.

  Mr. Barnes, an old lawyer and a friend of mine, said once, with that thoughtful, indefinite look afar that was so characteristic to him: “That impossible man . . . I could envy the girl he shall love. I would pity the one he will marry.”

  For the moment, I could have been envied by Mr. Barnes, and not by Mr. Barnes only: Henry Stafford loved me. I was twenty-one then, just graduated from one of the best colleges. I had come to live in my little native town, in the beautiful estate that belonged to me after my parents’ death. It was a big, luxurious house, with a wonderful old garden, the best in the town. I had a considerable fortune and no near relatives at all. I was accustomed to ruling my existence quietly and firmly myself.

  I tell the whole truth here, so I must tell that I was beautiful. And I was clever, I knew it; you always know it when you are. I was considered a “brilliant girl,” “a girl with a great future” by everybody in our society, though they did not like me too much, for I was a little too willful and resolute.

  I loved Henry Stafford. It was the only thing I ever understood in my life. It was my life. I knew I would never have another one, never could have. And I never did. Perhaps you should not love a human being like this. I cannot tell and I will not listen, if someone tells me you should not. I cannot listen: it was my whole life.

  Henry Stafford loved me. He loved me seriously. It was the first thing he did not smile at in his life.

  “I did not know I would be so helpless before love,” he said sometimes. “It was impossible, that you would not be mine, Irene. I must always have the things I wish, and it is the only thing I ever wished!” He kissed my arms, from the fingertips to the shoulder. . . . As for me, I looked at him and felt nothing else. His every movement, his manners, the sound of his voice made me tremble. When a passion like this gets hold of you, it never lets you go, never till your last breath. It burns all in you, and still flames, when there is nothing more to burn. . . . But then, how happy, oh! how happy I was!

  I remember one day better than everything. It was summer and there was as much sun on the bushes in my garden as water in a flood. We were flying on a swing, he and I. Both all in white, we stood at each side of the long, narrow plank, holding strongly to the ropes with both hands, and making the swing fly madly from one side to the other. We went so fast that the ropes cracked piteously and I could hardly breathe. . . . Up and down! Up and down! My skirt flew high above my knees, like a light white flag.

  “Faster, faster, Irene!” he cried.

  “Higher, higher, Henry!” I answered.

  With his white shirt open at the chest and the sleeves rolled above the elbows, he held the ropes with his arms, burned by the sun, and pushed the swing by easy, gracious movements of his strong, flexible body. His hair was flying in the wind. . . .

  And in the breathtaking speed, in the glowing sun, I saw and felt nothing but the man with the flying hair that was before me.

  Then, without saying anything to each other, with one thought, we jumped down from the highest position of our swing, in its fastest moment. We scratched our arms and legs badly in falling; but we did not mind it. I was in his arms. He kissed me with more madness than
there had been in our flight. It was not for the first time, but I shall never forget it. To feel his arms around me made me dizzy, almost unconscious. I clutched his shoulders with my hands, so that my nails must have scratched him through his shirt, till blood. I kissed his lips. I kissed his neck, where the shirt was open.

  The only words we said then were pronounced by him, or rather whispered, so that he could hardly distinguish them himself: “Forever . . . Irene, Irene, say that it is forever. . . .”

  I did not see him the next day. I waited anxiously till the evening. He did not come. Neither did he on the second day. A young fellow, a very self-confident and very clumsy “sheik,” who tried hopelessly to win a little attention from me, called upon me that day and, talking endlessly and quickly about everything imaginable, like a radio, dropped finally: “By the way, Henry Stafford has got into some business trouble . . . serious, they say.”

  I learned the whole terrible news in the next days: Henry was ruined. It was a frightful ruin: not only had he lost everything, but he owed a whole fortune to many persons. It was not his fault, even though he had always been so careless with his business. It was circumstance. Everybody knew it; but it looked like his fault. And it was a terrible blow, a mortal blow to his name, his reputation, all his future.

  Our little town was greatly excited. There were persons who sympathized with him, but most of them were maliciously, badly glad. They had always resented him, despite the admiration they surrounded him with, or just because of it, perhaps. “I would like to see what kind of face he’ll make now,” said one. “O-oh! That’s great!” “Such a shame!” said others.

  Many remarks turned upon me, also. They had always resented me for being Henry’s choice. “Don’t know what he’d find ’bout that Irene Wilmer,” had said once Patsy Tillins, the town’s prize vamp, summing up the general opinion. Now, Mrs. Hughes, one of our social leaders, a respectable lady, but who had three daughters to marry, said to me, with a charming smile: “I am sincerely happy that you escaped it in time, dear child. . . . Always thought that man was good for nothing”; to which Patsy Tillins added, in a white cloud, as she was quickly powdering her nose: “Who’s it you’ll pick up next, dearie?”

  I did not pay any attention to it all and I was not hurt. I only tried to understand the position and wondered if it was really so serious for Henry or not. One sentence only, pronounced by a stern, serious businessman whom I always respected, explained all to me and cleared the terrible truth. “He is an honest man,” he said to a friend, not knowing that I heard it, “but the only honorable thing left to him is to shoot himself, and the sooner the better.” Then I understood. I did not think long. I threw a wrap on my shoulders and ran to his house.

  I trembled when I saw him. I scarcely even recognized him. He was sitting at his desk, with a stone face and immobile eyes. One of his arms was hanging helplessly by his side and I saw that only his fingers were trembling, so lightly I could scarcely notice it. . . .

  He did not hear me enter. I approached him and fell at his feet, burying my head in his knees. He shuddered. Then he took my arms strongly and forced me to rise. “Go home, Irene,” he said with a stern, cold, expressionless voice, “and never come again.”

  “You . . . you don’t love me, Henry?” I muttered.

  There was suffering now in his voice, but anger also when he answered: “There can be nothing between us, now. . . . Can’t you understand it?”

  I understood. But I smiled, I just smiled from fun, because it was too impossible to be true. Money was now between us, money pretended to take him from me. Him! . . . I laughed, a frightful laugh. But would you not laugh if one would try to deprive you of your whole life, your one and only aim, your god . . . because that god has no money? . . .

  He did not want to listen to me. But I made him listen . . . I could not tell how many long, horrible hours I spent begging and imploring him. He refused. He was tender at times, asking me to forget him; then he was cold and stern, and turned his back to me, not to hear my words, ordering me to leave him. But I saw the passionate love in his eyes, the despair that he tried in vain to hide. I remained. I fell on my knees; I kissed his hands. “Henry . . . Henry, I cannot live without you! . . . I just cannot!” I cried.

  It took a long time to conquer him. But I was desperate and despair always finds a way. He surrendered himself at last and agreed . . . And when he held me in his arms, covering my face with kisses, flooded by tears, when he whispered: “Yes . . . Irene . . . yes,” and his lips trembled, I knew that he loved me, that an immense love made his eyes so dark with emotion. . . .

  The town exploded with surprise when they learned the news. No one was able to believe it, at first. When they did—the terror was general. Even Mrs. Hughes rushed to me and cried with a real sincerity and a sincere terror: “But . . . but you will not marry him, Irene! . . . It’s foolish! Why, but it’s . . . it’s foolish!” She was unable to find another word. “The girl is crazy!” said her friend, Mrs. Brogan, who was not so particular about expressions.

  Mr. Davis, an old friend of my parents, came to speak to me. He asked me to think it over again. He advised me not to marry Henry, to remember that if I gave my fortune to pay my husband’s debt, it would take all I possess—and could I be sure of the future? All this only made me laugh. I was so happy!

  The most farsighted of all was Mr. Barnes. He looked at me with his long, thoughtful glance. He had a sad, kind smile, which his experience with life and men had given him. He said: “I fear you will be very unhappy, Irene. . . . One is never happy with a passion like this.”

  Then he said to Henry, in a voice unusually stern for him: “Now, be careful with yourself, Stafford.”

  “I think it was superfluous to tell me this,” answered Henry coldly.

  We were married. Some persons say there is no perfect happiness on earth. There was. I was. I could not even call it happiness—the word is too small.

  I was his wife. I was not Irene Wilmer any longer, I was Irene Stafford. I can hardly describe the first time of my married life. I do not remember anything. If one asks me what was then, I could answer one word only: “Henry!” He was there, and what could I have noticed besides this? We sold all I had, the debt was paid, and he was saved. We could live just for one another, with nothing to disturb us, in the maddest, the wildest of happiness two human beings had ever experienced.

  The day came, however, when we were obliged to think of the future. We had paid all the money I possessed, sold my estate and my jewels. So we had to think of some work. Henry had been educated as an engineer. He found employment. It was not a very big position, but it was good enough for the beginning, considering the fact he had never worked in his specialty before.

  I rented a little flat. And then we lived, and I took all my strength, all my soul to make his life as it should be. I helped him in his work. He had not enough character to do it always with the necessary energy. He would often, in the middle of an important work, lie down on the sofa, his feet on his desk, with some eccentric new book in hand and a current of smoke from his cigarette. I always found a way to make him work and be more and more successful.

  I never allowed myself to become just his “pal,” his good friend and servant-for-all-work. I was his mistress, as well as his wife, and he was my lover. I managed to put a certain indefinite aloofness about me, that made me always seem somewhat inaccessible. He never noticed who was doing all the housework for him. I was a queen in his house, a mysterious being, that he was never sure to possess wholly and unquestionably, that he could never call his property and habitual commodity. I can say, we did not notice our home life; we had no home life. We were lovers, with an immense passion between us. Only.

  I made a romance out of his life. I made it seem different, strange, exciting every day, every moment. His house was not a place to rest, eat, and sleep in. It was an unusual, fascinating palace, where he had to fight, win, and conquer, in a silent, thrilling game.

/>   “Who could have thought of creating a woman like you, Irene!” he said sometimes, and his kisses left burning red marks on my neck and shoulders. “If I live it is only because I have you!” I said nothing. I never showed him all my adoration. You must not show a man that he is your whole life. But he knew it; he felt it. . . .

  The town’s society, which had met our marriage with such disapproval, began to look more kindly at us, after a while. But through the first hard time of fight, work, and loneliness, I led him, I alone, and I am proud to say that he did not need anyone else, through all those years.

  A frequent guest of ours and my best friend was Mr. Barnes. He watched our life attentively. He saw our impossible, unbelievable happiness. It made him glad, but thoughtful. He asked me once: “What would happen if he stopped loving you?”

  I had to gather all my strength to make my voice speak: “Don’t ever repeat it. There are things too horrible that one must not think about.”

  Time went, and instead of growing cold and tedious, our love became greater and greater. We could understand each other’s every glance, every movement now. We liked to spend long evenings before a burning fireplace in his study. I sat on a pillow and he lay on the carpet, his head on my knees. I bent to press my lips to his, in the dancing red glow of the fire. “I wonder how two persons could have been made so much for one another, Irene,” he said.

  We lived like this four years. Four years of perfect, delirious happiness. Who can boast of such a thing in his life? After all, I wonder sometimes whether I have the right to consider myself unhappy now. I paid a terrible price to life, but I had known a terrible happiness. The price was not too high. It was just. For those days had been, they were, and they were mine.