The Early Ayn Rand

KAY GONDA: [With a faint smile at her] No. It isn't true.

FINK: Of course, I'm not one to censure anything. I despise morality. Then there's another thing I wanted to ask you: I've always been interested, as a sociologist, in the

influence of the economic factor on the individual. How much does a movie star actually get?

KAY GONDA: Fifteen or twenty thousand a week on my new contract — I don't remember.

[FANNY and FINK exchange startled glances]

FINK: What an opportunity for social good! I've always believed that you were a great humanitarian.

KAY GONDA: Am I? Well, perhaps I am. I hate humanity.

FINK: You don't mean that, Miss Gonda!

KAY GONDA: There are some men with a purpose in life. Not many, but there are. And there are also some with a purpose — and with integrity. These are very rare. I like them.

FINK: But one must be tolerant! One must consider the pressure of the economic factor. Now, for instance, take the question of a star's salary...

KAY GONDA: [Sharply] I do not want to talk about it. [With a note that sounds almost like pleading in her voice] Have you nothing to ask me about my work?

FINK: Oh, God, so much!... [Suddenly earnest] No. Nothing. [KAY GONDA looks at him closely, with a faint smile. He adds, suddenly simple, sincere for the first time:] Your work... one shouldn't talk about it. I can't. [Adds] I've never looked upon you as a movie star. No one does. It's not like looking at Joan Tudor or Sally Sweeney, or the rest of them. And it's not the trashy stories you make — you'll excuse me, but they are trash. It's something else.

KAY GONDA: [Looking at him] What?

FINK: The way you move, and the sound of your voice, and your eyes. Your eyes.

FANNY: [Suddenly eager] It's as if you were not a human being at all, not the kind we see around us.

FINK: We all dream of the perfect being that man could be. But no one has ever seen it. You have. And you're showing it to us. As if you knew a great secret, lost by the world, a great secret and a great hope. Man washed clean. Man at his highest possibility.

FANNY: When I look at you on the screen, it makes me feel guilty, but it also makes me feel young, new and proud. Somehow, I want to raise my arms like this... [Raises her arms over her head in a triumphant, ecstatic gesture; then, embarrassed:] You must forgive us. We're being perfectly childish.

FINK: Perhaps we are. But in our drab lives, we have to grasp at any ray of light, anywhere, even in the movies. Why not in the movies, the great narcotic of mankind? You've done more for the damned than any philanthropist ever could. How do you do it?

KAY GONDA: [Without looking at him] One can do it just so long. One can keep going on one's own power, and wring dry every drop of hope — but then one has to find help. One has to find an answering voice, an answering hymn, an echo. I am very grateful to you. [There is a knock at the door. They look at one another. FINK walks to the door resolutely]

FINK: Who's there?

WOMAN'S VOICE: [Offstage] Say, Chuck, could I borrow a bit of cream?

FINK: [Angrily] Go to hell! We haven't any cream. You got your nerve disturbing people at this hour! [A muffled oath and retreating steps are heard offstage. He returns to the others] God, I thought it was the police!

FANNY: We mustn't let anyone in tonight. Any of those starving bums around here would be only too glad to turn you in for a — [Her voice changes suddenly, strangely, as if the last word had dropped out accidentally] — a reward.

KAY GONDA: Do you realize what chance you are taking if they find me here?

FINK: They'll get you out of here over my dead body.

KAY GONDA: You don't know what danger...

FINK: We don't have to know. We know what your work means to us. Don't we, Fanny?

FANNY: [She has been standing aside, lost in thought] What?

FINK: We know what Miss Gonda's work means to us, don't we?

FANNY: [In a flat voice] Oh, yes... yes...

KAY GONDA: [Looking at FINK intently] And that which means to you... you will not betray it?

FINK: One doesn't betray the best in one's soul.

KAY GONDA: No. One doesn't.

FINK: [Noticing FANNY's abstraction] Fanny!

FANNY: [With a jerk] Yes? What?

FINK: Will you tell Miss Gonda how we've always...

FANNY: Miss Gonda must be tired. We should really allow her to go to bed.