The Early Ayn Rand by Ayn Rand Read Free Book Online

arms and flung me to the floor. “Speak, dirt! Answer! Why did you do it?”
    I looked at him, I looked straight into his eyes and told a lie. It was the most atrocious lie that could be and the only one he could believe and understand. “I hid it from you because I did not want to make you unhappy. I struggled a long time against this love and could not stand it any longer,” I said.
    And he understood this. He left my arms and stepped back. Then laughed. “Well, I can make you happy, then!” he cried. “I don’t love you at all and I am not unhappy at all! I love another woman! I am only happy now!”
    “You are happy, Henry?”
    “Yes, immensely! I see that you are disappointed!”
    “No, Henry, I am not disappointed. It is all right.”
    “All right? . . . What are you doing lying on the floor? Get up! . . . All right? You have the insolence to say that?”
    He walked up and down the room. “Don’t look at me!” he cried. “You have no right any more even to look at me! I forbid it to you!”
    “I will not look, Henry,” I answered, bowing my head.
    “No, you will! You will look at yourself!” he cried and, seizing me by the arm, flung me to the looking glass. “Look at your dress!” he cried. Dark wine spots covered the silver gauze of my dress.
    “You loved him, you went with him, well. But wine! But kisses! But that conduct in a public place!” he cried. Oh, my plan had worked perfectly! I said nothing.
    He was silent for some time, then he said, more calmly and coldly: “You understand that there will be nothing between us, now. I wish I could forget that there ever was. . . . And I want you to forget that I was your husband. I want you to give me back everything you have from me, any kind of remembrance.”
    “Well, Henry, I can give them now,” I answered.
    I went to my room and brought everything, all his pictures, his presents, some letters, all I had from him. He took them all and threw them into the fireplace. “May I . . . may I keep this one, Henry?” I asked, handing him the best picture, with the inscription. My fingers trembled. He took it, looked, and threw it back to me disdainfully. It fell on the floor. I picked it up.
    “I will see to it that we are divorced as soon as possible,” he said. He fell into an armchair. “Let me alone now,” he added.
    I walked to the door, then stopped. I looked at him. And I said, with a voice that was very firm and very calm: “Forgive me, Henry . . . if you can . . . and forget me. . . . And don’t grieve with grim thoughts, think about Claire, and be happy . . . and don’t think about me . . . it is not worthwhile.”
    He looked at me. “You were like this . . . before,” he said slowly.
    “I was . . . I am no longer. . . . Everything changes, Henry . . . everything has an end. But life is beautiful . . . life is great. . . . You must be happy, Henry.”
    “Irene,” he said, in a very low voice, “tell me, why have you changed?”
    I have gone through it all calmly. This simple sentence, my name, his low voice, made something rise in my throat. But for one second only. “I could not help it, Henry,” I answered.
    Then I went upstairs to my room.
    I bit my lips, when I entered, so that I felt the heavy taste of blood in my mouth. “That’s nothing,” I muttered. “That’s nothing, Irene. . . . That’s nothing. . . .” I felt a strange necessity to speak; to say something; to drown with words something that has no name and that was there, waiting for me. “That’s nothing . . . nothing. . . . It will be over . . . it will be over . . . just one minute, Irene, it will be over . . . one minute. . . .”
    I knew I was not blind, but I did not see anything. I did not hear a sound. . . . When I began to hear again I noticed that I was repeating senselessly, “. . . one minute . . . one minute . . .”
    Henry’s picture, which I held, fell to the floor. I looked at it. Then, suddenly, I saw clearly, wholly, and exactly what