The Early Ayn Rand (60 page)

SERGE: [
Real terror showing in his face for the first time
] You’re going to—

HASTINGS: I’m going to let you explain it all to a jury.

SERGE: [
Screaming
] But you can’t! You can’t! Listen! I’m innocent! But if you put me on trial, they’ll kill me, don’t you understand? Not your jury! My own chiefs! All right! I
am
a Soviet agent! And they don’t forgive an agent who gets put on trial! They’ll kill me—my own chiefs at home! Don’t you understand? Even if I’m acquitted, it will be a death sentence for me just the same! [
Pulls a gun out
] Stand still, all of you!

HASTINGS: That’s that.

HELEN: Is he dead?

HASTINGS: Yes. [
Then adds:
] Perhaps it’s best this way. It saves us from a long and painful trial. The case is closed. I’m glad—for all of you. [
To
HELEN] I hope, Mrs. Breckenridge, that when you’ve been a neighbor of ours longer, you will forgive us for giving you on your first day here—

HELEN: I shall be a neighbor of yours, Mr. Hastings—perhaps—later. Not this summer. I’m going to sell this house. Harvey and I are going to Montreal.

TONY: And I’m going to Gimbel’s.

HASTINGS: [
Walks to door Left, turns to
INGALLS] It’s as I’ve always said, Steve. There
is
no perfect crime.

INGALLS: [
Who has not moved from near the fireplace
] No, Greg. There isn’t.

ADRIENNE: What are you going to do now, Steve?

INGALLS: I’m going to ask you to marry me. [
As she makes a movement forward
] But before you answer, there’s something I’m going to tell you. Yesterday, when you looked at those fireworks and suddenly thought of something—it was not of me or of Helen, was it?

ADRIENNE: No.

INGALLS: I know what you thought. You see, I know who killed Walter Breckenridge. I want you to know it. Listen and don’t say anything until I finish.

INGALLS: If, tomorrow at noon, Walter, you give this invention to the world—then, the day after tomorrow, Soviet Russia, Communist China, and every other dictatorship, every other scum on the face of the earth, will have the secret of the greatest military weapon ever invented.

BRECKENRIDGE: Are you going to start on that again? I thought we had settled it this afternoon.

INGALLS: This afternoon, Walter, I begged you. I had never begged a man before. I am not doing that now.

BRECKENRIDGE: You’re interfering with the fireworks. Drop it, Steve. I’m not interested.

INGALLS: No, you’re not interested in the consequences. Humanitarians never are. All you see ahead is lighted slums and free electric power on the farms. But you don’t want to know that the same invention and the same grand gesture of yours will also send death through the air, and blow up ammunition depots, and turn cities into rubble.

BRECKENRIDGE: I am not concerned with war. I am taking a much farther perspective. I am looking down the centuries. What if one or two generations have to suffer?

INGALLS: And so, at a desperate time, when your country needs the exclusive secret and control of a weapon such as this, you will give it away to anyone and everyone.

BRECKENRIDGE: My country will have an equal chance with the rest of the world.

INGALLS: An equal chance to be destroyed? Is that what you’re after? But you will never understand. You have no concern for your country, for your friends, for your property, or for yourself. You don’t have the courage to hold that which is yours, to hold it proudly, wisely, openly, and to use it for your own honest good. You don’t even know that that takes courage.

BRECKENRIDGE: I do not wish to discuss it.

INGALLS: You are not concerned with mankind, Walter. If you were, you’d know that when you give things to mankind, you give them also to mankind’s enemies.

BRECKENRIDGE: You have always lacked faith in your fellow men. Your narrow patriotism is old-fashioned, Steve. And if you think that my decision is so dangerous, why don’t you report me to the government?

INGALLS: There are too many friends of Serge Sookin’s in the government—at present. It’s I who must stop you.

BRECKENRIDGE: You? There’s nothing you can do about it. You’re only a junior partner.

INGALLS: Yes, Walter, that’s all I am. Sixteen years ago, when we formed our partnership and started the Breckenridge Laboratories, I was very young. I did not care for mankind and I did not care for fame. I was willing to give you most of the profits, and all the glory, and your name on my inventions—they were
my
inventions, Walter, mine alone, all of them, and nobody knew it outside the laboratory. I cared for nothing but my work. You knew how to handle people. I didn’t. And I agreed to everything you wanted—just to have a chance at the work I loved. You told me that I was selfish, while you—you loved people and wanted to help them. Well, I’ve seen your kind of help. And I’ve seen also that it was I, I the selfish individualist, who helped mankind by producing the Vitamin X separator and the cheap violet ray and the electric saw—[
Points to machine
]—and this. While you accepted gratitude for it—and ruined all those you touched. I’ve seen what you’ve done to men. It was
I
who gave you the means to do it. It was I who made it possible for you. It is my responsibility now. I created you—I’m going to destroy you. [BRECKENRIDGE
glances up at him swiftly, understands, jerks his hand away from the machine and to his coat pocket
] What are you looking for? This? [
Takes the gun out of his pocket and shows it to
BRECKENRIDGE
. Then slips it back into his pocket
] Don’t move, Walter.

BRECKENRIDGE: [
His voice a little hoarse, but still assured
] Have you lost your mind? Do you expect me to believe that you’re going to kill me, here, now, with a house full of people a few steps away?

INGALLS: Yes, Walter.

BRECKENRIDGE: Are you prepared to hang for it?

INGALLS: No.

BRECKENRIDGE: How do you expect to get away with it? [INGALLS
does not answer, but takes out a cigarette and lights it
] Stop playing for effects! Answer me!

INGALLS: I am answering you. [
Indicating the cigarette
] Watch this cigarette, Walter. You have as long a time left to live as it will take this cigarette to burn. When it burns down to the brand, I’m going to throw it here in the grass. It will be found near your body. The gun will be found here—with my fingerprints on it. My handkerchief will be found here on a branch. Your watch will be smashed to set the time. I will have no alibi of any kind. It will be the sloppiest and most obvious murder ever committed. And that is why it will be the perfect crime.

BRECKENRIDGE: [
Fear coming a little closer to him
] You . . . you wouldn’t . . .

INGALLS: But that’s not all. I’m going to let your friend Serge Sookin hang for your murder. He’s tried once to do just what I’m going to do for him. Let him take his punishment now. I’m going to frame myself. And I’m also going to frame him to look as if he’d framed
me.
I’ll give him an alibi—and then I’ll blow it up. Right now, he is in Stamford, buying a newspaper. But it won’t do him any good, because, at this moment, up in my room, I have an early edition of today’s
Courier.
Do you understand, Walter?

BRECKENRIDGE: [
His voice hoarse, barely audible
] You . . . Goddamn fiend . . .!

INGALLS: You wanted to know why I let you see me kissing Helen today. To give myself a plausible motive of sorts. Just the kind that would tempt a Serge to frame me. You see, I can’t let Greg Hastings guess my real motive. I didn’t know that Helen would play her part so well. I never dreamed that possible or I wouldn’t have done it. It’s the only thing that I regret.

BRECKENRIDGE: You . . . won’t . . . get away with it. . . .

INGALLS: The greatest chance I’m taking is that I must not let Greg Hastings guess the real nature of my invention. If he guesses that—he’ll know I did it. But I have to take that chance. [
Looks at his cigarette
] Your time is up. [
Puts the butt out and tosses it aside
]

BRECKENRIDGE: [
In utter panic
] No! You won’t! You won’t! You can’t! [
Makes a movement to run
]

INGALLS: [
Whipping the gun out
] I told you not to move. [BRECKENRIDGE
stops
] Don’t run, Walter. Take it straight for once. If you run—you’ll only help me. I’m a good shot—and nobody would believe that I’d shoot a man in the back. [
And now
this
is the real
STEVE INGALLS
—hard, alive, taut with energy, his voice ringing—the inventor, the chance-taker, the genius—as he stands pointing the gun at
BRECKENRIDGE] Walter! I won’t let you do to the world what you’ve done to all your friends. We can protect ourselves against men who would do us evil. But God save us from the men who would do us good! This is the only humanitarian act I’ve ever committed—the only one any man can ever commit. I’m setting men free. Free to suffer. Free to struggle. Free to take chances. But free, Walter,
free
! Don’t forget, tomorrow is Independence Day!

INGALLS: I’ve told you this because I wanted you to know that I don’t regret it. Had circumstances forced me to take a valuable life—I wouldn’t hesitate to offer my own life in return. But I don’t think that of Walter. Nor of Serge. . . . Now you know what I am. [
Rises, stands looking at her
] Now, Adrienne, repeat it—if you still want me to hear it.

ADRIENNE: [
Looking at him, her head high
] No, Steve. I can’t repeat it now. I said that I was inexcusably, contemptibly in love with you and had been for years. I can’t say that any longer. I will say that I’m in love with you—so terribly
proudly
in love with you—and will be for years . . . and years . . . and forever. . . . [
He does not move, only bows his head slowly, accepting his vindication
]

Editor’s Preface

 

 

In 1938, after devoting about three years to architectural research, Ayn Rand started writing
The Fountainhead.
She finished in late 1942, and the novel was published the next year. In less than a decade, the book became world-famous; by now, it has sold more than six million copies. Ayn Rand’s own view of
The Fountainhead
can be found in her introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition.

For this anthology, I have selected two sets of excerpts cut by Miss Rand from the original manuscript; these are the only unpublished passages of substantial length. Both are from the early part of the novel, written in 1938. As is true of the passages from
We the Living
, neither has received Ayn Rand’s customary final editing, and the titles are my own invention.

“Vesta Dunning” is the story of Howard Roark’s first love affair, with a young actress, before he found Dominique. In the manuscript, the story is interwoven with other plot developments; it is offered here as a continuous, uninterrupted narrative.

Vesta Dunning is an eloquent example of a person of “mixed premises,” to use a term of Ayn Rand’s. In part, Vesta shares Howard Roark’s view of life; in part, she is a secondhander, willing to prostitute her talent in order to win the approval of others, a policy she tries to defend as a means to a noble end. Miss Rand cut Vesta from the novel, she told me, when she realized that there was too great a similarity between Vesta and Gail Wynand, the newspaper publisher (who also pursued a secondhander’s course in the name of achieving noble ends). In some respects, there is a marked similarity between Vesta and Peter Keating, too; in fact, as the material makes plain, some of Keating’s dialogue was written originally for Vesta.

“Roark and Cameron” comprises two distinct scenes involving both men. The first takes place when Roark is working in New York City for Henry Cameron, the once-famous architect who is now forgotten by the world; the second occurs some time later, at the site of the Heller house, Roark’s first commission after starting in private architectural practice on his own. Evidently, Miss Rand cut the scenes because she decided that so detailed a treatment of Roark’s relationship to Cameron was inessential to the purpose of the novel at this point—that is, the establishing of Roark’s character and the development of the plot.