The Early Ayn Rand

BRECKENRIDGE: [Severely] I refuse to understand what you mean. You're being indecent.

ADRIENNE: [Screams] Goddamn you! Goddamn you, you rotten, holy, saintly bastard!

INGALLS: [Appearing at the top of the stairs] You'll ruin your voice, Adrienne — and you won't be able to do Little Women again.

[ADRIENNE whirls around and stops short]

BRECKENRIDGE: [As INGALLS comes down the stairs] I believe this is the kind of performance you'll enjoy, Steve. So I'll leave Adrienne to you. You'll find you have a great deal in common. [Exits Right]

INGALLS: The acoustics in this room are great, Adrienne. Does wonders for your diaphragm — and your vocabulary.

ADRIENNE: [Stands looking at him with hatred] Listen, you. I have something to tell you. Now. I don't care. If you want to make wisecracks, I'll give you something real to wisecrack about.

INGALLS: Go ahead.

ADRIENNE: I know what you think of me — and you're right. I'm just a lousy ham who's done nothing but trash all her life. I'm no better than a slut — not because I haven't any talent, but worse: because I have and sold it. Not even for money, but for someone's stupid, drooling kindness — and I'm more contemptible than an honest whore!

INGALLS: That's a pretty accurate description.

ADRIENNE: Well, that's what I am. I know also what you are. You're a hard, cold, ruthless egoist. You're just a laboratory machine — all chromium and stainless steel. You're as efficient and bright and vicious as a car going ninety miles an hour. Only the car would bump if it ran over someone's body. You wouldn't. You wouldn't even know it. You're going ninety miles every one of the twenty-four hours — through a desert island, as far as you're concerned. A desert island full of charts, blueprints, coils, tubes, and batteries. You've never known a human emotion. You're worse than any of us. I think you're the rottenest person I've ever met. I'm inexcusably, contemptibly, completely in love with you and have been for years. [She stops. He stands motionless, looking at her silently. She snaps:] Well? [He does not move] You're not going to pass up a chance like this for one of your brilliant wisecracks? [He does not move] Shouldn't you answer — something?

INGALLS: [His voice is very soft and very earnest. It is the first sound of simple sincerity to be heard from him:] Adrienne... [She looks at him, astonished] I am thinking that I haven't heard it. I can't answer. Had you said it to me yesterday — or the day after tomorrow — I'd answer. Today, I can't.

ADRIENNE: Why?

INGALLS: You know, sound vibrations never die in space. Let's think that what you said hasn't reached me yet. It will reach me day after tomorrow. Then — if I'm still able to hear it and if you still want me to hear it — I'll give you my answer.

ADRIENNE: Steve... what's the matter?

INGALLS: Day after tomorrow, Adrienne. Perhaps sooner. But if not then — then never.

ADRIENNE: Steve, I don't understa —

INGALLS: [Picking up a magazine from the table, in his normal, conversational tone] Have you seen this week's World? There's a very interesting article on the progressive income tax. It demonstrates how the tax works for the protection of mediocrity... The problem of taxation, of course, is extremely complex.

ADRIENNE: [She is turned away from him, her shoulders sagging a little, but she does her best to follow his lead and speaks obediently, in as good an imitation of a conversational tone as she can manage— but her voice sounds very tired] Yes. I've never been able to figure out an income tax blank or an insurance policy.

[HELEN, BRECKENRIDGE, SERGE, and TONY enter, coming down the stairs]

INGALLS: Well? What do you think of the house, Helen? HELEN: [Without enthusiasm] It's lovely. BRECKENRIDGE: [Proudly] She couldn't think of one thing that I hadn't thought of already.

INGALLS: As usual.