The Early Ayn Rand

HIX: This world is of no consequence. Whatever beauty it offers us is here only that we may sacrifice it — for the greater beauty beyond. [She is not looking at him. He stands watching her for a moment; then, his voice low with emotion:] You don't know how lovely you are at this moment. [She raises her head] You don't know the hours I've spent watching you across the infinite distance of a screen. I would give my life to keep you here in safety. I would let myself be torn to shreds, rather than see you hurt. Yet I am asking you to open this door and walk out to martyrdom. That is my chance of sacrifice. I am giving up the greatest thing that ever came to me.

KAY GONDA: [Her voice soft and low] And after you and I have made our sacrifice, what will be left on this earth?

HIX: Our example. It will light the way for all the miserable souls who flounder in helpless depravity. They, too, will learn to renounce. Your fame is great. The story of your conversion will be heard the world over. You will redeem the scrubby wretches who come to this temple and all the wretches in all the slums.

KAY GONDA: Such as that boy who was here?

HIX: Such as that boy. Let him be the symbol, not a nobler figure. That, too, is part of the sacrifice.

KAY GONDA: [Slowly] What do you want me to do?

HIX: Confess your crime. Confess it publicly, to a crowd, to the hearing of all!

KAY GONDA: Tonight?

HIX: Tonight!

KAY GONDA: But there is no crowd anywhere at this hour.

HIX: At this hour... [With sudden inspiration] Listen. At this hour, a large crowd is gathered in a temple of error, six blocks away. It is a dreadful place, run by the most contemptible woman I've ever known. I'll take you there. I'll let you offer that woman the greatest gift — the kind of sensation she's never dared to imagine for her audience. You will confess to her crowd. Let her take the credit and the praise for your conversion. Let her take the fame. She is the one least worthy of it.

KAY GONDA: That, too, is part of the sacrifice?

HIX: Yes.

[KAY GONDA rises. She walks to the door, unlocks it, and flings it open. Then she turns to HIX and throws the key in his face. It strikes him as she goes out. He stands motionless, only his head dropping and his shoulders sagging]

CURTAIN

SCENE 2

The letter projected on the screen is written in a sharp, precise, cultured handwriting:

Dear Miss Gonda,

I have had everything men ask of life. I have seen it all, and I feel as if I were leaving a third-rate show on a disreputable side street. If I do not bother to die, it is only because my life has all the emptiness of the grave and my death would have no change to offer me. It may happen, any day now, and nobody — not even the one writing these lines — will know the difference.

But before it happens, I want to raise what is left of my soul in a last salute to you, you who are that which the world should have been. Morituri te salutamus.

Dietrich von Esterhazy Beverly-Sunset Hotel

Beverly Hills, California

Lights go out, screen disappears, and stage reveals drawing room in the hotel suite of DIETRICH von ESTERHAZY. It is a large, luxurious room, modern, exquisitely simple. Wide entrance door in center wall Left. Smaller door to bedroom in wall Right, upstage. Large window in wall Left, showing the dark view of a park far below. Downstage Right a fireplace. One single lamp burning.