The Early Ayn Rand

It was not the scene she had witnessed that made her hate him for the moment. It was something she had felt present in that scene, something in him which she could not name, the thing she dreaded, the thing she had fought — and loved — for a year.

That year of her life had given her no happiness; only bewilderment and doubts and fear; a fear underscored by rare moments of a joy which was too much to bear... She never felt the distance between them as she felt it lying in his arms, in his bed. It was as if the nights they shared gave her no rights, not the right to the confidence of a friend, not the right of the consideration of an acquaintance, not even the right to the courtesy of a stranger passing her on the street. He listened silently to her breathless voice whispering to him, when she could not stop it: "I love you, Howard... I love you... I love you..." her lips pressed to his arm, to his shoulder, as if her mouth were telling it to his skin, and it was not from her nor for him. She could be grateful only that he heard. He never answered. She spoke to him of his meaning to her, of her life, of every thought, every spring of her life. He said nothing. He shared nothing- He never came to her for consolation, for encouragement, not even as to a mirror to reflect him and to listen. He had never known the need of someone listening- He had never known need. He did not need her. It was this — hidden, unconfessed, unacknowledged, but present, there, there within her — which made her afraid- She would have given anything, she would have lost him happily afterwards, if only she could see once one sign, one hint of his need for her, for anything of her. She could never see it.

She asked sometimes, her arms about him: "Howard, do you love me?" He answered: "No." She expected no other answer; somehow, the simple honesty in his voice, as he answered, the gentleness, the quiet unconsciousness of any cruelty made her accept it without hurt.

"Howard, do you think you'll ever love anyone?"

"No."

"You're too selfish!"

"Oh, yes."

"And conceited."

"No. I'm too selfish to be conceited."

Yet he was not indifferent to her. There were moments when she felt his attention, to her voice, to her every movement in the room, and behind his silence a question mark that was almost admiration. In such moments, she was not afraid of him and she felt closer to him than to any being in the world. Those were the moments when she did not laugh and did not feel comfortable, but felt happy instead and spoke of her work. She had had several parts after her first small success; they were not good parts and the shows had not lasted, and on some she had received no notice at all. But she was moving forward, and the more she hated the empty words she had to speak each evening in some half-empty theater, the more eagerly she could think of things she would do some day, when she reached the freedom to do them, of the women she would play, of Joan d'Arc. She found that she could speak of it to Roark, that it was easier, speaking of it to him than dreaming it secretly. His mere presence, his silence, his eyes, still and listening to her, gave it a reality she could not create alone. She was so aware of him, when she spoke of it, that she could forget his presence and yet feel it in all of her body, in the sharp, quickened, exhilarated tension of her muscles, and she could read the words of Joan d'Arc aloud, turned away from him, not seeing him, not knowing him, but reading it to him for him, with every vibration of her ecstatic voice. "Howard," she said sometimes, breaking off her lines, her back turned to him, not feeling the necessity to face him, because he was everywhere around her, and his name was only a mechanical convention for the thing she was addressing, "there are things that are normal and comfortable and easy, and that's most of life for all of us. And then there are also things above it, things so much more than human, and not many can bear it and then not often, but that's the only reason for living at all. Things that make you very quiet and still and it's difficult to breathe. Can I explain that to the people who've never seen it? Can I show it to them? Can I? That's what I'll do someday with her, with Joan d'Arc, to make them look up, up, Howard... You see it, don't you?" And when she looked at him, his eyes were wide and open to her, and in that instant there were no secrets in him hidden from her, and she knew him, knowing also that she would lose him again in a moment, and she felt that her legs could not hold her, and she was sitting on the floor, her head buried against his knees, and she was whispering: "Howard, I'm afraid of you... I'm afraid of myself because of you... Howard... Howard..." She felt his lips on the back of her neck and she felt a thing incredible from him, incredible and right, right only in that moment: tenderness.