The Early Ayn Rand

FANNY: I'm going to pack. [Starts gathering things, hardly looking at them, and flinging them into the cartons with ferocious hatred] Shall we move to the Ambassador or the Beverly-Sunset, darling? [He does not answer. She flings a book into the carton] The Beverly-Sunset would be nice, I think... We shall need a suite of seven rooms — do you think we could manage in seven rooms? [He does not move. She flings a pile of underwear into the carton] Oh, yes, and a private swimming pool. [Flings a coffee pot into carton viciously] And a two-car garage! For the Rolls-Royce! [Flings a vase down; it misses the carton and shatters against a chair leg. She screams suddenly hysterically] Goddamn them! Why do some people have all of that!

FINK: [Languidly, without moving] Childish escapism, my dear.

FANNY: The heroics is all very well, but I'm so damn sick of standing up to make speeches about global problems and worrying all the time whether the comrades can see the runs in my stockings!

FINK: Why don't you mend them?

FANNY: Save it, sweetheart! Save the brilliant sarcasm for the magazine editors — maybe it will sell an article for you someday.

FINK: That was uncalled for, Fanny.

FANNY: Well, it's no use fooling yourself. There's a name for people like us. At least, for one of us, I'm sure. Know it? Does your brilliant vocabulary include it? Failure's the word.

FINK: A relative conception, my love.

FANNY: Sure. What's rent money compared to infinity? [Flings a pile of clothing into a carton] Do you know it's number five, by the way?

FINK: Number five what?

FANNY: Eviction number five for us, Socrates! I've counted them. Five times in three years. All we've ever done is paid the first month and waited for the sheriff.

FINK: That's the way most people live in Hollywood.

FANNY: You might pretend to be worried — just out of decency.

FINK: My dear, why waste one's emotional reserves in blaming oneself for what is the irrevocable result of an inadequate social system?

FANNY: You could at least refrain from plagiarism.

FINK: Plagiarism?

FANNY: You lifted that out of my article.

FINK: Oh, yes. The article. I beg your pardon.

FANNY: Well, at least it was published.

FINK: So it was. Six years ago.

FANNY: [Carrying an armful of old shoes] Got any acceptance checks to show since then? [Dumps her load into a carton] Now what? Where in hell are we going to go tomorrow?

FINK: With thousands homeless and jobless — why worry about an individual case?

FANNY: [Is about to answer angrily, then shrugs, and turning away stumbles over some boxes in the semidarkness] Goddamn it! It's enough that they're throwing us out. They didn't have to turn off the electricity!

FINK: [Shrugging] Private ownership of utilities.

FANNY: I wish there was a kerosene that didn't stink.

FINK: Kerosene is the commodity of the poor. But I understand they've invented a new, odorless kind in Russia.

FANNY: Sure. Nothing stinks in Russia. [Takes from a shelf a box full of large brown envelopes] What do you want to do with these?

FINK: What's in there?

FANNY: [Reading from the envelopes] Your files as trustee of the Clark Institute of Social Research... Correspondence as Consultant to the Vocational School for Subnormal Children... Secretary to the Free Night Classes of Dialectic Materialism... Adviser to the Workers' Theater...

FINK: Throw the Workers' Theater out. I'm through with them. They wouldn't put my name on their letter-heads.

FANNY: [Flings one envelope aside} What do you want me to do with the rest? Pack it or will you carry it yourself?

FINK: Certainly I'll carry it myself. It might get lost. Wrap them up for me, will you?

FANNY: [Picks up some newspapers, starts wrapping the files, stops, attracted by an item, in a paper, glances at it] You know, it's funny, this business about Kay Gonda.

FINK: What business?

FANNY: In this morning's paper. About the murder.

FINK: Oh, that? Rubbish. She had nothing to do with it. Yellow press gossip.

FANNY: [Wrapping up the files] That Sayers guy sure had the dough.

FINK: Used to have. Not anymore. I know from that time when I helped to picket Sayers Oil last year that the big shot was going by the board even then.