The Early Ayn Rand

He was tall and slim, and beautiful, too beautiful. He was intensely ambitious and never made a step to realize it. He had an immense, indefinite longing and did not trouble himself to think about it. He was the most perfectly refined and brilliant man, whom society admired and who laughed at society. A little lazy, very skeptical, indifferent to everything. Haughty and self-conceited for himself — gracious and ironical for everybody.

In our little town Henry Stafford was, of course, the aim and target of all the girls and "homemade" vamps. He flirted openly with everyone; that made them all furious.

His father had left him a big business. He managed it just enough to have the necessary money and the least trouble possible. He treated his business with the same smile of perfect politeness and perfect indifference with which he spoke to our society ladies or read a popular best-seller, from the middle.

Mr. Barnes, an old lawyer and a friend of mine, said once, with that thoughtful, indefinite look afar that was so characteristic to him: "That impossible man... I could envy the girl he shall love. I would pity the one he will marry."

For the moment, I could have been envied by Mr. Barnes, and not by Mr. Barnes only: Henry Stafford loved me. I was twenty-one then, just graduated from one of the best colleges. I had come to live in my little native town, in the beautiful estate that belonged to me after my parents' death. It was a big, luxurious house, with a wonderful old garden, the best in the town. I had a considerable fortune and no near relatives at all. I was accustomed to ruling my existence quietly and firmly myself.

I tell the whole truth here, so I must tell that I was beautiful and I was clever, I knew it; you always know it when you are. I was considered a "brilliant girl," "a girl with a great future" by everybody in our society, though they did not like me too much, for I was a little too willful and resolute.

I loved Henry Stafford. It was the only thing I ever understood in my life. It was my life. I knew I would never have another one, never could have. And I never did. Perhaps you should not love a human being like this. I cannot tell and I will not listen, if someone tells me you should not. I cannot listen: it was my whole life.

Henry Stafford loved me. He loved me seriously. It was the first thing he did not smile at in his life.

"I did not know I would be so helpless before love," he said sometimes. "It was impossible, that you would not be mine, Irene. I must always have the things I wish, and it is the only thing I ever wished!" He kissed my arms, from the fingertips to the shoulder... As for me, I looked at him and felt nothing else. His every movement, his manners, the sound of his voice made me tremble. When a passion like this gets hold of you, it never lets you go, never till your last breath. It burns all in you, and still flames, when there is nothing more to burn... But then, how happy, oh! how happy I was!

I remember one day better than everything. It was summer and there was as much sun on the bushes in my garden as water in a flood. We were flying on a swing, he and I. Both all in white, we stood at each side of the long, narrow plank, holding strongly to the ropes with both hands, and making the swing fly madly from one side to the other. We went so fast that the ropes cracked piteously and I could hardly breathe... Up and down! Up and down! My skirt flew high above my knees, like a light white flag.

"Faster, faster, Irene!" he cried.

"Higher, higher, Henry!" I answered.

With his white shirt open at the chest and the sleeves rolled above the elbows, he held the ropes with his arms, burned by the sun, and pushed the swing by easy, gracious movements of his strong, flexible body. His hair was flying in the wind...

And in the breathtaking speed, in the glowing sun, I saw and felt nothing but the man with the flying hair that was before me.

Then, without saying anything to each other, with one thought, we jumped down from the highest position of our swing, in its fastest moment we scratched our arms and legs badly in falling; but we did not mind it. I was in his arms. He kissed me with more madness than there had been in our flight. It was not for the first time, but I shall never forget it. To feel his arms around me made me dizzy, almost unconscious. I clutched his shoulders with my hands, so that my nails must have scratched him through his shirt, till blood. I kissed his lips. I kissed his neck, where the shirt was open.

The only words we said then were pronounced by him, or rather whispered, so that he could hardly distinguish them himself: "Forever... Irene, Irene, say that it is forever..."