*SPOLIER ALERT*
The cover of my copy of “We The Living” has the phrase “They (Kira, Leo, and Andrei) would die to live and love.” I suspect that one of the themes, if not the central theme, of that novel is this distinction. The exposition of just how deeply a nation’s political system affects the day-to-day, and internal lives, of it’s citizens is perhaps merely a vechicle by which to express it.
Each one of these characters loses something irreplacable - the early years of their adult lives - and suffers because of it. The freedom that they’ve been denied (or, in Andrei’s case, denied himself) is a supreme value that when lost, to whatever degree, can never be recoverd. Of course, it was possible, and appropriate, to experience pleasure from whatever legitimate values they could while trapped inside Soviet Russia, but without their individual liberty, everything that they experienced was colored in some way - especially their relationships; which unfortunately both came to unhappy endings. I suspect that this is because all three, being who they were, sensed the futility of trying inside the hell they were living. Does this mean that their relationships were not very important? No, but it was obvious throughout the book that none of them were in love with each other. The fact that Kira kept “replacing” Leo with Andrei, and Andrei with Leo; that Leo took that other woman he met in the Crimea; and that, if I remember correctly, Andrei took a Communist girl at some point.
If love means the full realization of what is possible, then to lose it is the same as losing one’s freedom. It means not achieving - either by calamity or because of circumstance - what is within your capacity, as a human being, to achieve. When Andrei realized that he had lost his integrity and his independence, he had no reason to live and, precisely because of his love for integrity and independence, he took his own life. When Leo realized that he had lost his capacity to judge and his will to live, as his own form of confused rebellion, he condemned himself to the slow, painful death of being a Soviet citizen. And finally, when Kira realized that Andrei deserved to die and that Leo no longer deserved, nor wanted her love, she condemned her country to death by risking (or, judging by her frantic escape attempt, I’d say guaranteeing the loss of) the only thing that could keep any country alive: the extraordinary passion to live that she, and few others like her, possess.
Now, political freedom is merely an analogy here. I do not mean to imply that Ayn Rand believed that romantic love, and a sense of that another person is irreplacable, is impossible inside a less than laizzes-faire society. Perhaps she did, but I certainly don’t mean to. I don’t know the answer to that question, but it’s a fascinating one.
What I mean to say is that, on an emotional level, no value - freedom, romantic love, not even life itself - are ends in themselves; only happiness is. To paraphrase Rand: That joyous, guiltless, profound sense of happiness that can only come from the certainty that one is deserving of it, and capable of it. If one knows that that highest, most exalted of feelings is not possible, no matter what hope you (or your lover) can inspire, I find it hard to believe that one can get excited about the idea of living happily ever after together. Would it be possible to fall deeply, romantically in love with someone who has a terminal illness?
So once lost, can this feeling of “irreplaceable love” be replaced? Well, I think that after a profound grieving process and after some very significant “emotional disintegration” (or geographical relocation) it can be recreated, but the pain that one feels from losing it can never be lost. Even if it only expresses itself in a subtle recollection that this new happiness is not what could have been, but what had to be.
I think that that feeling is completely appropriate, no matter how virtuous, admirable, and sexually gratifying your new lover might be.
Edit: Last sentence, 2nd paragraph.