The Journals of Ayn Rand (136 page)

The
“below-zero ” types
who set the values to which all the “value-betrayers” surrender:

Lorne’s note—Hella on her way to the hotel—the flashback:

Hella’s love for Lome—his conflict between Hella and Gloria—Hella’s conflict with the world (her “curse” of “seeing things as they ought to be”).

Love scene between Hella and Lome—his best “passion for life.”

The missed date—Gloria’s party—the announcement of Gloria’s engagement to Lorne. Hella’s walk home—Lome follows her, their scene. (“It is only
my
pain—and I can take care of it.”)

Hella’s struggle—the senseless dance-engagements-her excruciating loneliness—Lome’s marriage.

Hella’s practice and saving for her debut—the discovery of “her own world,” her “dates” with Lorne “as they should have been.”

Lorne’s struggle with his precarious empire—the deterioration of his relationship with Gloria and of their marriage.

Hella dancing in the dive. The stranger, who is Lorne’s uncle—their friendship.

Hella’s debut—total disaster, except for the presence of Lome and of the uncle.

The uncle’s death—the conditions of his will.

Lorne’s trap—his conversation with the lawyer, his decision.

Back to the present: the scene in the hotel room (which is the “torture scene”).

Lorne’s final choice
(probably in court, in connection with the will)—his reunion with Hella, their unobstructed future.

Approximate text of the note:

The music to be used (dance numbers):

The story of Atlas who did
not
go on strike. (The issue of “pronouncing moral judgment,” of
not
sanctioning evil. Or: “how to lead a rational life in an irrational society.”)

What would happen if a few key people or cultural leaders maintained a “moral tone”—instead of today’s scared, social-metaphysical, cowardly surrender to any
immoral
assertiveness (which is the policy of letting evil set the moral terms). Why are people more afraid of me than of communism? Is it that they know I demand immediate, moral-epistemological action from them, and a long-range stand—while communism is a threat they can evade and make unreal in their own minds? Is it the issue of their guilt and lack of self-esteem, which makes physical terror or disaster more “acceptable” to them than psycho-epistemological terror, than the immediate threat to their (pseudo) self-esteem?

(On re-reading the above:) I think it’s obvious that the issue here is: Does one want a world and a life geared to one’s best—or to one’s worst? Today’s people prefer to protect their own vices and weaknesses rather than fight for their virtues. This makes one point obvious: the “gray” people are the guiltiest and rottenest of all;
they
make evil possible. There is no such thing as a “mixed” moral position—it is
only
the evil that can profit by and win in a “mixed psychology” (or “mixed morality”)—just as in a “mixed economy.”

What causes that? Lack of self-esteem and, therefore, of self-confidence. What is the cause of that lack? Lack of moral knowledge—but only in part; more fundamentally, it is the indulgence of emotions at the expense of reason: a basic,
volitional
psycho-epistemological issue which does not depend on the content of one’s knowledge.

 

 

Theme:
Loyalty to values,
as a sense of life.

My earlier notes are all wrong. The approach I projected is too intellectual—too explicit. The novel has to deal with the generalized terms of a “sense of life”—i.e., with
emotional metaphysics.
The nature of the assignment (and the trick) is to
concretize the story, while keeping it abstract.

This is why Hella has to be a dancer. Convey the meaning of music and dancing as the esthetic expression of a “sense of life.”

Hella’s love for Lome.

His engagement party to Gloria—and the scene between Hella and Lome on her way home.

Her “private universe.”

His betrayal of her (and of his values).

Her career disaster.

Her walk—and her triumph.

Gloria and the “playboy.” Lome’s request. The “playboy‘s” murder. Hella as witness (or suspected witness).

The scene between Gloria and Lorne: her demand. Hella receives Lome’s note.

Back to the present: the scene in the hotel room.

Hella’s dismissal from the University (a kind of “trial scene”). Her debut—dancing for a single man in the audience. Her walk home—Lome follows her, their final reunion.

 

 

Emotional abstractions.
An emotional abstraction consists of all those things which have the power to make one experience a certain emotion. For instance: a heroic man, the New York skyline, flying in a plane, a sunlit “stylized” landscape, ecstatic music, an achievement of which one is proud. (These same things will give an emotion of terror and guilt to a man with the wrong premises; all except the last, which is impossible to him.) An opposite example: a humble or depraved man, an old village or ruins, “walking on the moors,” a desolate landscape, folk songs or atonal music, the failure of someone else’s achievement or ambition.

(The root and common denominator in all these things is self-esteem or lack of it; pro-man or anti-man; pro-life or anti-life.)

 

 

The two basic “sense of life” music numbers are: “Will o’ the Wisp” (as the triumph, the
achieved
sense of life) and “La Traviata Overture” (as the way there).

 

To be used as dance
numbers:

Hella Maris

Lome Dieterling

Gloria Thornton

Aurelius Taylor (the professor, the spiritual “intellectual”)

Bruce Beasely (the businessman, the plain brute)

Frieda Baker (the flat-foot dancer)

The traitor

The playboy

The town—Athens, Maine.

This story has obvious features in common with AR’s early fiction. The protagonist is a woman, as was almost always the case prior to
The Fountainhead.
Further, the heroine’s romantic love is unrequited, as in
The Husband I Bought
(see
The Early Ayn Rand).
And, as in
The Little Street
or the screenplay
Ideal,
the protagonist faces an “enemy world” in which most people betray their values.

ABC of Architecture, The
(Price)

Abbott, Walter

Absolutes

Abstraction

in creative process

Adler, Heddy (character)

Airtight,
as working title for We the
Living

Akston, Hugh (character)

Altruism,

as a means of exploiting producers

as incompatible with life and virtue

history of

hypocrisy of

meaning of

motive of

See also
Charity; Egoism.

“Analysis of the Proper Approach to a Picture on the Atomic Bomb,”

 

Aquinas, Thomas

Architectural Composition
(Curtis)

Architecture and Democracy
(Bragdon)

Architectural research

Argounova, Kira (character)

Aristotle

Art, entertainment vs.

Atlas Shrugged
(Rand)

“Atlantis,” notes for scenes in

characters, list of;
see also specific characters

plot

outline by chapter

research for

theme

Atomic bomb,

as argument for free enterprise

danger of

development and history of

Autobiography of an Idea
(Sullivan)

Axioms

of morality

See also
Consciousness; Existence.

Baker, John R.