The Early Ayn Rand

Her part was described officially as the second feminine lead, but for those who saw the opening performance there had been no leads and no other actors in the cast and hardly any play: there had been only a miracle, the impossible made real, a woman no one had ever met, yet everyone knew and recognized and believed boundlessly for two and a half hours. It was the part of a wild, stubborn, sparkling, dreadful girl who drove to despair her family and all those approaching her. Vesta Dunning streaked across the stage with her swift, broken, contorted gait; or she stood still, her body an arc, her arms flung out, her voice a whisper; or she destroyed a profound speech with one convulsed shrug of her thin shoulders; or she laughed and all the words on that stage were wiped off by her laughter. She did not hear the applause afterwards. She bowed to it, not knowing that anyone applauded her, not knowing that she bowed.

She did not hear what was said to her in the dressing room that night. She did not wait for the reviews. She ran away to find Roark, who was waiting for her at the stage door, and she seized his arm to help her stand up, but she said nothing, and they rode home in a cab, silently, not touching each other. Then, in his room, she stood before him, she looked at him, she was speaking, not knowing that she spoke aloud, words like fragments of the thing that was bursting within her:

"Howard... that was it... there it was... you see, I liked her... she's the first one I ever liked doing... it was right... oh, Howard, Howard! It was right... I don't care what they'll say... I don't care about the reviews... whether it runs or not, I've done it once... I've done it... and that's the way now, Howard... it's open... to Joan d'Arc... they'll let me do it... they'll let me do it someday..."

He drew her close to him, and she stood while he sat, his arms tight about her, his face buried against her stomach, holding her, holding something that was not to be lost. In that moment, she forgot the fear that had been following her for days, the fear of the slow, open, inevitable growth of his indifference.

He did not tell Vesta about it for several days. He had seen her seldom in the last few months; her success was working a change in her, which he did not want to see. When he told her at last that he had lost his job, she looked at him coldly and shrugged: "It may teach you a few things for the future."

"It did," said Roark.

"Don't expect me to sympathize. Whatever it was that you did, I'm sure you jolly well deserved it."

"I did."

"For God's sake, Howard, when are you going to come down to earth? You can't think that you're the only one who's always right and everybody else wrong!"

"I'm too tired to quarrel with you tonight, Vesta."

"You've got to learn to curb yourself and cooperate with other people. That's it, cooperate. People aren't as stupid as you think. They appreciate real worth when there's any to appreciate."

"I don't doubt it."

"Stop talking as if you're throwing sentences in the wastebasket! Stop being so damn smug! Don't you realize what's happened to you? You had a chance at a real career with a real, first-class firm and you didn't have sense enough to keep it! You had a chance to get out of the gutter and you threw it away! You had to be Joan d'Arc'ish all over the place and..."

"Shut up, Vesta," he said quietly.

When he came home in the evenings, Vesta was there sometimes, waiting for him. She asked: "Found anything?" When he answered, "No," she put her arms around him and said she felt sure he would find it. But secretly, involuntarily, hating herself for it, she felt glad of his failure: it was a vindication of her own unspoken thoughts, of the new appearance the world was presenting to her, of her new security, of her reconciliation with the world, a security which he threatened, a reconciliation against which he stood as a reproach, even though he said nothing and, perhaps, saw nothing. She did not want to acknowledge these thoughts; she needed him, she would not be torn away from him. She could not tell whether he guessed. She knew only that his eyes were watching her, and he said nothing.

Vesta entered the room in a streak, without knocking, and stopped abruptly, her skirt flying in a wide triangle and flapping back tightly against her knees. She stood, her mouth half open, her hair thrown back, as she always stood — as if in a gust of wind, her thin body braced, her eyes wide, impatient, full of a flame that seemed to flicker in the wind.

"Howard! I have something to tell you! Where on earth have you been? I've come up three times this evening. You weren't looking for work at this hour, were you? — you couldn't."

"I..." he began, but she went on:

"Something wonderful's happened to me! I'm signing the contract tomorrow. I'm going to Hollywood."

He sat silently, his arms on the table before him, and looked at her.