The Early Ayn Rand

"No" is the world Ayn Rand escaped from. "Kira's Viking" is why she escaped — what she wanted to find in the world instead.

L. P.

A month to wait is a fortnight in Paris, a week in New York, a year in Soviet Russia.

"No," said the saleslady in the bookstore, "we have no foreign magazines, citizen.

Foreign magazines? You must be new in Petrograd. We have no more publications from abroad than from Mars, citizen. Unsuitable ideology, you know. What can one expect of bourgeois countries?... Here's a nice selection, citizen: The Young Communist, Red Weekdays, Red Harvest... No?... We have splendid novels, citizen. Naked Year— all about the civil war. Sickle and Hammer — it's the class awakening of the village — futuristic, you know — but very profound."

The shelves were bright with white covers and red letters, white letters and red covers — on cheap, brownish paper and with laughing, defiant broken lines and circles cutting triangles, and triangles splitting squares, the new art coming through some crack in the impenetrable barrier, from the new world beyond the borders, whose words could not reach the little store where a picture of Lenin winked slyly at Kira, from above a sign: "State Publishing House."

"No," said Galina Petrovna, "we have no money to waste on theater tickets. You ought to be glad we have enough for tramway tickets."

In the streets, there were big posters with little blue letters announcing the opening season of the "State Academic Theaters" — the three theatrical giants of Petrograd that were called "the Imperial Theaters" five years ago: the Alexandrinsky, with a chariot high on its roof, stone horses' hoofs suspended over the city, with five balconies of red and gold inside, watching Russia's best dramas; the Marinsky — blue and silver, solemn and majestic, a temple to operas and the fluttering skirts of ballet; the Michailovsky — orange and silver, friendly and impudent, winking at its two serious brothers with the newest daring plays and the gayest light operas.

"No," said the cashier, "no tickets under three hundred and fifty rubles. Then we have profunion nights — free tickets from your union... If you're not a union member, citizen, who cares if you don't get to see a show?"

"No," said Irina Dunaeva, "I get no new dresses this winter either. So you don't have to worry, Kira. We'll look alike... Yes, I have powder. Soviet powder. Doesn't stay on very well. But do you know Vava Miloslavsky, Victor's girl — for the time being? Her father's a doctor — a Free Profession, they call it — you see, he doesn't 'exploit labor' so they leave him alone — and he makes money — and Vava — now don't talk about it — she has a box of Coty's powder... yes, French. Yes, real. From abroad. Smuggled. Ten thousand rubles a box... I think Vava uses lipstick. You know, I think it's going to be a fashion. Daring, isn't it? But they say they use it — abroad... Vava, she has a pair of silk stockings. Don't say I told you. She likes to show them off — and I don't want to give her the satisfaction."

"No!" said the red letters on a poster. "The Proletarian Consciousness is not Contaminated by Paltry Bourgeois Ideology. Comrades! Tighten our Class Welding!"

The poster showed a milling crowd of workers, the size of ants, in the shadow of a huge wheel.

"No," said the student in the red bandanna, "you gotta stand in line for the bread, same as us all, citizen. Sure, it might take two hours. And it might take three hours. What's the hurry, citizen? You ain't got anything better to do with your time. Expecting privileges, perhaps? Too good to stand in line with us proletarians? Don't wiggle your feet, citizen. Certainly, I'm cold, too... Sure, you'll miss the lecture. And I'll miss a meeting of the Cell. But this is Bread Day."

Every student had a provision card. The floor of the University shop was covered with sawdust. The clerk at the counter briskly shoved hunks of dried bread at the line moving slowly past him, and dipped his hand into a barrel to fish out the pickles, and wiped his hand on the bread. The bread and pickles disappeared, unwrapped, into briefcases filled with books.

"No," said the article in Pravda, "the New Economic Policy is not a surrender of our revolutionary ideology. It is a temporary compromise with a historical necessity. The fight isn't over. Come on, comrades, let's show the fat-bellied foreign imperialists, our new, united ranks on the front of economic recovery! This is the day of the factory and the tractor instead of the bayonet! This is the day to demonstrate our red discipline in the slow, monotonous routine of proletarian State Construction! This is the time of heroic Red weekdays!"

"No," said Galina Petrovna, "I didn't break the kerosene stove. There's no kerosene. If you mix the coarse flour with cold water, it'll taste like gruel."