The Journals of Ayn Rand (14 page)

Authors: Ayn Rand

BOOK: The Journals of Ayn Rand

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Clothes:
The impossibility of getting new materials. Every new article of clothing an event (particularly shoes). Endless altering of old clothes. Pathetic “styles”: patent-leather, celluloid jewelry, “batik” handkerchiefs. Worship of imported “foreign” clothes and
silk stockings.
Pathetic awe at the sight of “dressed” foreigners. Smuggling of stockings and cosmetics. The “Soviet” cosmetics (poisonous lipstick). No formal evening clothes. “Soviet” materials—everybody alike. The terrible inefficiency of everything “Soviet.”

Houses:
Crowded to the limit. Encounters with enforced tenants. Frozen water pipes. Lack of wood. Six degrees [Celsius] in the house. “Bourgeoisie” stoves. Linseed oil lamps. Primuses. The house “parliament” and the Uprav dom. Dirt. Lice.

Employment:
The pathetic horror of “cuts” of employees. The vile, low, humiliating playing up to the “red” authorities. The time wasted on stupid, hypocritical “social activities.” The “enforced patriotism.” Constant propaganda in connection with any work. Persecution of private traders and the unemployed. Impossibility of finding work. Odd forms of earning a living: street peddlers and their pathetic merchandise.

Political and Cultural

The All-Pervading Propaganda:
Its ridiculous, far-fetched connections. Its intentionally vulgar, “popular” style and artificial bravado. Glorifying of the drudgery and the “everyday.” Its main methods:
employment
—enforced meetings, “social activities,” demonstrations, enforced deductions of pay for “patriotic” enterprises; and
schools
—enforced study of unscientific “social sciences,” a “red” angle on all activities.

Talk, talk, and talk.
Endless, enforced talk without the right to say anything.

The ever-present threat of the G.P.U.: secret arrests, executions, exiles.

Art:
Old theater—and next to it the awkward new “proletarian” dramas. Movies: the foreign ones cut, the red ones—(!). Literature (books and magazines): all propaganda, and intentionally vulgar. Art: all “red.” “Ballet of the Toilers.”

The pathetic intelligentsia: the operas, philharmonic concerts, futuristic book covers and china, “modern poets,” theatrical settings, foreign translations, and worship of foreign magazines. The pathetic “parties.”

Morality

Hypocrisy at an unbelievable height. Nepmen and “red fighters” like Victor. [
NEP was Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which allowed some
“
private
”
trading
. “
Nepmen ” was the name for those who grew rich through this policy; they are represented in the novel by the character of Morozov.
]

Characters

The individual against society at a time when society is at its worst and makes itself felt most strongly. Therefore, show
all
the
mass
manifestations of humanity in general and of the Russian revolution in particular.

Types who represent it:

Kira
—cannot be broken.
Andrei
—broken physically, broken life.
Leo
—broken spiritually.
Pavel
—“the best of the worst”; representative of those successful
with the mob.
Victor
—same [as Pavel].
Comrade Sonia
—the “new woman,” mob womanhood at its most
dangerous.
Dunaev—
the best in the old world and its tragedy.
Antonina Pavlovna
—the worst.
Nepman
—the triumph of the new order.
Stepan—
the sailor, the fighting idealist.
Lydia
—the dying old world.
Galina Petrovna
—the accommodating “intelligent” [woman].
Alexander Dimitrievitch
—the dying old world.
Marisha
—the new “loose, red youth.”
Sasha
—the old fighting student.
Irina
—an average girl, caught by events.
Acia
—the “new child.”
Maria Petrovna
—a frightened “nothing.”
Vava
—a “flapper” of the old world.

[
AR made the following notes on revising Part 1.
]

Chapter I

More of Kira’s reaction—make Kira’s presence felt.

Song of the “Apple”—twice.

Incident of “official business”—? Out.

Chapter II

Their arrival and the station—shorter.

Shorter description of Nevsky.

Read again carefully the talk with relatives. Insert some touch of propaganda—very little.

Chapter III

Revise: Place and date of birth, family position, union membership, occupation. Quicker, short examples and sentences. More of Kira, her spirit of adventure, and not in love only—
her hunger for practical beauty, for dreams and reality united.
More distinct propaganda on the official’s part. Cut out unnecessary “cruelty” of Kira. Kira’s attitude toward sex and love.

Chapter IV

More of Kira—of her idea of life and of her reaction. A little about the University. More propaganda. Kira—the Viking—the “Song of the Broken Glass” against Soviet reality.

Correct reference to Admiral Kovalensky.

Shorter and sharper—Victor’s visit. His conversation—also in the cab—more pointed and typical—the “artist,” the “advanced, cultured, hard-working young man,” the terrific egotism felt under it.

Synopsize scene in Summer Garden.

Conversation with Leo—more of Leo’s bitterness, masterful arrogance and unhappiness.

Chapter V

Not enough of Kira’s reaction to Leo.

Cut out the “no” sequences—except house meeting. [
The “no” sequences have been published in
The Early Ayn Rand.] More of propaganda and living conditions. More of Kira’s reaction, her impatience, her thoughts of Leo. The University—a possible beginning; Syerov and talk of “Red Culture.” New meeting with Comrade Sonia. Rewrite scene at home.

This chapter should be the opportunity for “everyday” flashes; propaganda also—the Dunaevs.

Chapter VI

Better beginning. Better description of streets. “Re-touch” meeting with Leo. Out—scene at Dunaevs; move it—modified—to Chapter V. Scene of Dunaev and Kira at market: a little more—and sharper. (Better—about Professor Lesbov—also about his crying over Beauty.) “Re-touch” conversation with Andrei—watch out for naturalness and Andrei’s character, his strength. Emphasize: Leo’s weariness, Andrei’s enthusiasm.

Chapter VII

A little more of Kira’s reaction in scene with soap. Revise theater scene. And the sleigh. More of Andrei’s reaction—stern. Meeting with Sonia and Pavel—?

Chapter VIII

“Re-touch” scene in Communist cell.

Chapter IX

More conversation with Andrei. Show their friendship, their basic understanding, the things on which they differ and in which they’re alike. “Re-touch” ride through streets and walk through snow.

Chapter X

Last—Leo’s warming.

Chapter XI

Kira-Andrei conversation. More about relationship of Kira-Leo, and their love.

Chapter XII

Reconstruct party. More of Victor—“soul of the party.” Better description of Vava’s father. More
fear.

Chapter XIII

Cut out “Vorovsky.” [
Vorovsky
, mentioned
in her history notes, was a Soviet envoy in Switzerland who was killed in 1923
.] Check on flashes of Leo’s employment-seeking; give them something besides dialogue—a few touches.

Chapter XIV

Better beginning. A little better about the movie. A few more detailed touches to the quick episodes.

[In general:]
Better dialogue with Andrei.
A more real, personal friendship—not too theoretical. And the theories—clearer.

General misunderstanding and disapproval of Kira—home and Institute.

[
The remaining notes are on particular scenes, beginning with the first meeting of Kira and Leo.
]

Leo:
Insulting and perfectly indifferent about it.

Their understanding—which leads to questions about her experience, then to her final confession.

Kira:
Stunned by him, reverent, yet hiding it under a matter-of-fact calm. More reverence than love. A girl full of life, full of vague hopes of which he is the realization.

Leo:
Mystery as to his identity and position. Bitterness—a general, philosophic kind of bitterness, with just a hint of bitterness against the Soviets under it.
A cynical worldliness and weariness.
Cruelty—and completely indifferent to it. Superior conceit—indifference to women’s compliments, a “spoiled by women” attitude.

At first—he is amused, he plays with her. Then—he is interested, impressed—more than he wants to admit—by her straightforward, brave, calm outlook on things.

[
The following is for the description of Petrograd in Chapter I, Part 2. In a 1961 interview, AR commented on this description: “It is the one passage that shows (Victor) Hugo’s influence. The style is not mine—it is not the method natural to me. ”
]

The whole: give a picture and feeling of Petrograd as a city—not
any
city, but
Petrograd.

Its creation: by a will of man where no city should have been—not born,
made.

Nevsky. Kamenostrovsky. The islands. Neva. Palace and fortress. Side streets. Canals. Little parks. Factories. Unrelieved drabness and plainness.

(The feeling of the city without crossing its doors, without entering its houses.)

Petrograd is complete, it does not grow. It is definite.

Its facets are extreme: man-made, deliberate, perfect for what they are. No nature—
man
.

No folklore or history like that of Moscow or Paris. No legends.

It is not the city of the people, but of the aristocracy and the intellect.

[The following two sentences were crossed out:]
Its symbol would not be a church or a fortress, but a palace and a night club. It is the city of a high hat and a narrow liqueur glass.

It is “he,” not “she” like Moscow.

What the revolution did. (Monuments.)

Spring.

[For the climactic scene between Kira and Andrei in Chapter XIII
,
Part 2.
]

She is proud of what she has done.

Nothing he can do to Leo will compare to what she has done to him.

His love was only money for Leo. She laughed at his love.... Highest woman? Only a prostitute—and he is the one who bought her. She thought of Leo [while she was] in his arms. Every kiss she gave him was given for Leo.

She is not ashamed—she is what they have made her. They who have forbidden life to the living.

In him and to him—she has paid.

Has he learned what his own life is? Will the State be a consolation?

Does he know what they are doing? “Airtight.”

I could stand all but my highest reverence . . .